The Examples We Set

By: Tanya Dodd-Hise

“A good example holds twice the value of good advice” ~ Unknown

As the days have gone by since receiving the phone call from the assistant principal regarding Noah and his bullying incident, I have had a lot of time to think about all of the outside (and inside) influences that are in his life that may have contributed to his actions.  I look at those of us in his life, as well as things like television and video games.  I am constantly telling him that he needs to keep himself in check because he is now an example to his baby sister.  But what kind of example am I being to my children?

In all of our talks that we had during the initial phase of him getting into trouble at school, I told Noah repeatedly that he was no better than anyone else.  I asked him where he ever got the idea that he had any place to stand and ridicule anybody else for his perception of their failures.  “How dare you!” I said sternly.  But when I stop and think about it, I would be lying if I said that I never acted better than, or superior to, someone else; we all would.  I can remember, as a middle schooler, being in choir, knowing that I had a relatively good singing voice.  I had done my first solo as a fourth grader, so sure I knew I could sing – and I knew that I could sing better than some of my classmates in choir class.  Did I ever make fun of any of them, acting like I was better?  I hope not, but I honestly don’t remember.  In high school, I joined journalism and became an editor on the school newspaper, and yeah, I knew that I could write.  I knew that I wanted to write as an adult, for my profession, because I was “just that good.”  Did I ever make fun of any of my classmates for their spelling and grammar mistakes?  Probably.  I will openly admit that one.  I have a hard time even now keeping my mouth shut on those.  However, just because I may write better than someone else doesn’t mean that I believe myself to be better as a person than they are.  But now, years later and all grown up, what kind of example am I to my very easily influenced twelve-year-old, and for that matter, my soon-to-be seven-month-old baby girl?

I know that there have been times that I have been out and about and have seen someone who was dressed in what I decide is “odd,” with body parts hanging out that, in my opinion, should NOT be.  So I am sure that I have made remarks, and yes, in front of my child.  We ALL have done this – and nobody better comment and tell me that they haven’t – or else www.peopleofwalmart.com wouldn’t exist.  We all have pointed and laughed at others, as adults, for one reason or another.  But just because we have all done it doesn’t make it any more okay.  I have been more and more aware of these kinds of actions in the past few weeks, keenly aware that I can no longer stand in ridicule of anyone else if I expect my children to hold to those same standards.  Yesterday, this thought came blaring back to me as we were leaving, of all places, Wal Mart.  A woman that I have seen there before was entering as we were about to leave.  She is in a motorized chair because of a disfigurement – she has a regular sized, large torso, but with very small and disfigured arms and legs.  I saw her out of the corner of my eye as I was checking out, and soon Noah was staring and saying, “Mom!  Pssst.  Look.  Over there.”  I kept checking out, refusing to turn in her direction.  This then prompted a long lecture as we were leaving about staring or making comments or making fun of anybody, much less someone with a handicap or disfigurement.  I was mortified once again.  I know that young children stare and say things about people because they don’t yet understand that they shouldn’t – but HE is old enough to know.  But kids learn that it is okay to do it by their parent’s example, don’t they?  It really got me thinking, and it really got me thinking that while I don’t do that on a regular basis, I AM guilty of it, which probably makes me a hypocrite in Noah’s eyes.  So just like he, together we will have to start thinking before speaking and/or reacting.  I want my children to treat everyone as their equal, not ever as inferior or less than.  I have been treated that way and don’t like it; so I know that others don’t either.  Now, if everyone else could just take a self-examining look within, just think of how different the world would be and how differently we would – and could – all treat each other?

Change begins with a whisper ~ The Help

Big, Fat, $%*&! F

By: Tosha Woronov

I’m failing at everything.  A big, fat, fucking F.

My boss is like, “Hello? Are you there?  Are you working? Are you ever coming in?”

The dishes are out of control.  I wash one spoon at a time so Leo can eat his Cheerios in his 5-minute breakfast allotment before school.

The laundry? Check THIS out:

My dog stares at me all day as I try to work.  He stares because he is getting one-eighth of the exercise he needs and deserves.

My cat has stopped meowing for attention and just squints his angry cat eyes at me.

I haven’t posted a blog in exactly THREE MONTHS.

I’m not even reading, which I’m usually pretty good about, burning through a novel every two weeks.

I’m in crisis over my diet/workout plan – too sick with sinus infection to workout, too OVER IT to eat another raw, brightly-colored vegetable.

And my son, my baby -he needs more.  Daddy is away on a loooong business trip, and Leo needs someone to fill that playmate gap. (Hello, WHY didn’t we give him a brother 5 years ago again??)  Someone to toss the ball, wrestle with on the couch, compete with, sweat with.  Yesterday he wrote this adorable Daily Schedule on his wipeboard that included all the things that he and Mommy were going to do that evening, including cuddle time, reading together, playing a board game, an art project, and “indoor basketball”.  Problem was, his start time for the schedule was 5pm (on a MONDAY), it involved 7 hours’ of activities, the board game he chose was MONOPOLY, and the activities didn’t include my list of things to do (like making dinner, walking the dog, folding the laundry, or watering the plants that had just suffered through another 100-degree day).

When I tried -gently, hesitantly -to point all this out to him, he got embarrassed (“this is a horrible schedule”), started to cry, then cleared his board in angry, frustrated swipes.  I couldn’t calm him or help and so I started to cry too.  I shared with him way too much for his soft little 7-year-old heart about how I was trying, and that I just. couldn’t. do it.  (Luckily I had the wherewithall and insight to quickly get us into the car to drive to frozen yogurt for dinner, to sit together at a wrought iron table by a burbling fountain, cool off, and regroup.)

I am tired.  Tired of not even coming close to filling the big shoes left by my husband. Tired of letting my son down. And the dog, and the cat, and my boss, and my friends, this house, the yard, myself.

I get an F this week; and please, if you are so inclined to comment – I know that it’s par for the course, and all parents go through this, that the dishes can wait, that I am supposed to give myself a break and I shouldn’t try to be Super Mom.

But I promise you, I am not trying to be Super Mom.  I just want to be Functioning Mom.  Dressed Mom. Breathing Mom. Mom with a Pulse.

And these dishes CANNOT wait.

A Prayer for My Boys

By: Shannon Ralph

What do I know about raising boys? I have come to the conclusion that boys are an absolutely mystery to me. My dad died when I was 11, so I spent most of my adolescence and all of my adulthood without a father. I do have one brother, but he was raised in a household of women, so he’s practically a girl in my eyes. I don’t have a lot of dating experience when it comes to the opposite sex. I’ve been with Ruanita for 15 years. So, let’s be honest…what in the hell do I know about raising boys? Pretty much nothing.

As such, I have decided that I must rely on that age-old paragon of parenting strategies. Prayer. That’s right. I am down on my knees appealing to my heavenly father above to please….for the love of God, please…help me raise these strange little creatures that smell like sweat and dirt. These little bodies harboring unfamiliar Y chromosomes. I present to you a Prayer for My Boys.

Dear Lord, it’s me. Shannon. Do you remember me? It’s been a while, I know. I was the tall skinny girl with the knobby knees who used to play the organ at your house every Saturday night. Remember? I used to annoy you every night when I went to bed begging you to please let me gain weight so my cousin Denny, Jr. would stop making fun of me. Well, I no longer play the organ. And oh, yea…thanks for the extra hundred pounds. Good one, Lord.

I am praying to you today because I have these two little boys. Amazing little creatures that you gave me. I like them. Really, I do. But here’s the thing. I think you may have made a mistake because…well…I don’t know what I am doing. I know nothing about boys. I don’t know how to raise them. I don’t know how to teach them. I don’t understand their need to pin one another to the floor and sit on each others’ heads. I don’t understand why every twig becomes a gun and every stick becomes a sword. I don’t understand how they can sit for hours on end with joystick in hand staring at blinking dots on a television screen. And please, can you explain to me what is so damn funny about fart noises?

I simply do not get them. As such, I have some specific requests to make of you. I will try to keep this brief, as I know you have more important things to worry about. Like the Middle East peace process and North Korea and The Bachelorette (please help that poor girl find love).

Dear Lord, please teach my boys, at some point in their lives, to hit the toilet. No woman wants to clean (or sit on) a urine-soaked toilet seat.

Please give them enough confidence in their own masculinity to never question another man’s.

When the time comes that my sons begin hiding the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition under their mattresses, please have mercy on their poor lesbian mother and give them the common sense to lock their bedroom door. I don’t think either of us would survive my walking in on that business.

Please instill in them a desire to participate in team activities. I realize that neither of them are exactly gifted athletes, but I would be happy with the debate team. Or the Lego team. Or even first tuba in the marching band. Whatever. Something…anything…that provides them with that all-important sense of teamwork that will get them further in life.

Please provide them with good friends. Friends who will sneak beer from their father’s liquor cabinet on Friday nights, but will not, under any circumstances, introduce my sons to anything more illicit than the occasional brew.

When, years from now, I am summoned to the county jail to pick up my son after he is caught drinking that smuggled beer, please strike him mute so I do not have to listen to his slurred words or declarations of love. If they are anything like their mother, my sons will be extremely happy and loving drunks. I don’t need to hear that shit.

Though they do not have a dad of their own, please let them be amazing fathers one day. Please make them nurturing and fun-loving and generous fathers.

Please allow them to realize—at some point before high school graduation—that grades matter. School is important. And education will get you further in life than anything else.

Please send them to college far enough away that they can enjoy freedom. Pizza for breakfast and keg parties and fraternity life. But not so far away that I cannot visit often. And unannounced.

Please let my boys fall in love. Deep, mad passionate love. Please let them find someone who makes their little hearts sing. And, if it is not too much trouble, please don’t let her be a bitch. I am afraid I have a soft spot for crying boys and I might just have to hunt her down and hurt the bitch.

Please give them the strength to stand up for those in need. Whether it be the kid being bullied in school or the woman who is the butt of inappropriate jokes at the office. Please let them know that all people are worthy of respect and give them the courage to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Let them be leaders, not lemmings.

Please make them love one another. Right now, their relationship is tenuous, at best. There is a whole lot of hero worship tempered with an odious amount of contempt. Please let that even out one day. They each only have one brother, and that relationship should be one of the best of their lives.

Please instill in them a deep sense of respect for women. Let them know in their heart of hearts that if they ever use their larger size or greater strength to intimidate or physically hurt a woman, their mother has ways of making them wish they were dead.

Please steer them away from jack-ass style stunts. Please make them see the idiocy of skateboards on rooftops. Please open their eyes to the fact that staplers and human flesh do not mix. Please keep them away from electricity and gas and fire and dry ice. Please keep them from ingesting inanimate objects that are not meant to be food. They are not the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. Please, Lord, protect them from their idiot selves.

Please allow them to keep their sensitivity. Despite its best efforts, do not let this world pound it out of them. Let them always understand that men can cry. And men can laugh and love and kiss and hug. Men can say “I love you.” And men can say “I’m sorry.”

Please provide them with a sense of adventure. Let them see the world. Make their own paths. Chart their own courses. Let them be risk-takers.

And above all else, Lord, let them grow up to be happy men.

Amen.

Passive Tantrums and the Autism Spectrum

By: Joe Newman

A passive tantrum is when a child feigns inability or lack of understanding in order to avoid difficulty, frustration or effort.

A few weeks ago a third grade teacher told me about her first experience using my method with a student named Jackson she suspected of engaging in passive tantrums.

Jackson was an eight-year-old who was very inconsistent in his ability to focus and complete most class work.  Most of the time he sauntered slowly through his assignments and needed constant prompting to stay on task or he would slowly drift into doodling on the sides of his papers, playing with something in his desk or talking quietly to the boy next to him.  When prompted by Ms. Gibson (his teacher) he would often tell her he didn’t know what to do next or he didn’t understand, despite his apparent understanding only a few minutes before.  Because Jackson showed difficulty comprehending social interactions and communications and had some difficulty making friends, he was diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum.

Ms. Gibson noticed that when Jackson was excited about an assignment he readily understood her communication, remembered the directions, and moved through the class work at a good pace without assistance.

One morning, when Jackson had been sauntering through his class work at a particularly leisurely pace, Ms. Gibson decided to see how much he was actually capable of.  During the lesson right before lunch the students had been given about 25 minutes in which to write three sentences.  Jackson had only finished writing one.

When the bell rang for lunch and Ms. Gibson excused the class she called Jackson over to her desk, “I need you to finish your last two sentences before you go to lunch.”  A moment later Jackson went to his cubby got his lunch and brought it to his desk.  Ms. Gibson saw this and said, “Jackson, maybe you didn’t understand, but you can’t have your lunch until you finish those two sentences.”  A minute later she heard his bag rustling and saw that Jackson was taking out his sandwich.  She walked over to him, placed her hands on his sandwich, and said, “I can see you really want to eat your lunch.  However, you won’t be able to have your lunch until you’ve finished writing your two sentences so I’m going to put your lunch on my desk till you’re finished.”  She took his sandwich, put it back in the bag and sat it on her desk.

Jackson sat without saying anything for a few moments.  Then he picked up his pencil and began writing.  Forty-five seconds later he had finished writing his two sentences (a task that on a good day might have taken him 5 minutes).  He showed his paper to Ms. Gibson and said, “Can I go to lunch now?”  And she gave him his lunch and he left the room.

From that day forward Ms. Gibson shifted her expectation of what Jackson was capable of.  She set natural consequences for not completing work she thought he might be capable of and created frustration around those behaviors she felt Jackson could change when motivated.  She began to assume understanding and ability where before she had assumed inability and insisted that he complete more work independently.  And in the month that followed, the amount of class work that Jackson would complete in a day almost doubled.

I see children like Jackson in every classroom I visit.  Children who have learned to camouflage their actual abilities in order to avoid frustration and difficulty and assert power and control over adults.  This is the passive tantrum.

In a culture where parents have been taught to empower their children in every way possible, we need to be aware that children will find more creative ways to assert this power, even if it means feigning inability.  Add to this the fact that parents and teachers are taught to be constantly on the lookout for signs of a disorder so as to intervene as early as possible.  Consequently, parents and teachers are more likely to assume inability and react by accommodating, rather than frustrating, these behaviors and many children quickly learn that a passive tantrum is an effective way to avoid difficulty and assert control.

When the new statistics came out in March about the sharp rise in children who are being diagnosed as on the Autism Spectrum I couldn’t help but wonder what percentage of these children were children like Jackson who had learned (and could therefore unlearn) the patterns of the passive tantrum.

Joe Newman is a Behavior Consultant and the author of Raising Lions

Long Beach Pride 2012

By: Kelly Rummelhart

Had a great time at Gay Pride this year! My best friend Stacie and I were going to be too pregnant this summer to attend SF Pride as usual, so looked around and found out that Long Beach Pride had perfect timing. So Friday, Stacie and I flew from Sacramento to Long Beach and met three other surrogate friends there.

We had our shirts made, although Stacie forgot hers at home . . . I’ll blame pregnancy brain. Saturday we hung around the festival grounds, which was a blast. At first we were surprised they charged $20 to get in but it was well worth the money. San Francisco doesn’t charge for a similar experience, but we all agreed it was a lot better than SF Pride’s booths, etc.

Sunday we walked down to a friend’s house and watched the parade from her front yard. I really liked Long Beach’s parade as well. I wasn’t sure how it would compare to SF’s but it was great. Yes, it was smaller but it had a great community feel to it. Overall, I was really impressed with Long Beach Pride. I would definitely return another year there for sure. However, after seeing how FABULOUS Las Vegas Pride’s entry was decorated . . . men and drag queens in feathers and the car decked out with feather streamers and sparkly decorations, we may go there next year. We were thinking of Chicago before, but Vegas got our attention.

A Breath of Fresh Hair

By: John Jericiau

 

Dear Baby #3,

Hurray! We are out of the first trimester, and you – the size of a lemon – weigh in at an extraordinary three and a half ounces. We are so excited for you to come into the world in about 26 weeks from now, give or take a week or so. You have two older brothers who will no doubt be your protectors and your role models. You have two fathers who will without fail love you and dote on you like there’s no tomorrow. You have four grandparents, seven aunts and uncles, and tons of cousins and other relatives who are looking forward to your arrival. You have a woman who is playing a big part in your journey to our family – she is carrying you and nurturing you and feeding you – just as she did for one of your brothers. You will love her just as if she is one of the family, because she is.

I think about you every day, wondering how you are growing and maturing. Right now you just started squinting and frowning. We have Botox for the side effects but by the time you need it I’m sure we’ll have something even better. You’re starting to pee, but hopefully it’s not waking you up at night like it is your grandpa (and even your daddy now and then). You’ve even started sucking your thumb, although try and limit yourself. Our family for the most part has very straight teeth.

You’re just starting to form a very fine layer of hair (called lanugo), which is funny seeing how your daddy and papa own a laser hair removal center. Most people we see there have fur showing up in unwanted places, so you are a breath of fresh hair. You’re body has straightened out and your head stands much more erect over your shoulders, which is in direct opposition to your daddy who has begun to curve forward, giving him a much clearer view of his feet than ever before.

Your intestines are starting to produce a delightful product known as meconium, which I will be bracing for in the first few poopy diaper changes you have. When your oldest brother shared this with us after his first few days of life, I was sure that his birthmom had ingested way too much chocolate just before his birth.

There’s lots of discussion right now about whether you are going to be a girl or a boy. Either (or both) is fine for your papa and me, but since we are anxiously waiting to hear, I did check my sources for prediction suggestions. One way was by measuring your heart rate; if your heart rate was over 140, you were a girl. Anything under 140, and you were a boy. Your heart rate? 164.

Another predictor is the Drano Gender Prediction Method. I actually had some Drano on hand from a recent backup, so I decided to go for it. It sounded easy enough: add 2 to 3 ounces of urine to a bottle containing 2 tablespoons of Drano on the bottom, and when the reaction stops (bubbling, fizzing, etc.), note the color. Brownish color means boy, and no reaction means girl. I took the Drano-laden bottle into the backyard, because I was not sure how my aim was going to be, and after the first few seconds of peeing into the bottle I was nearly overcome by the fumes. After running from the brewing bottle I made my way back to check the results: no reaction.

The last one I tried was the Wedding Ring Gender Prediction Method. I was excited to use this method since your Papa and I finally got wedding rings for each other this Valentine’s Day, even though we were officially married way back in 2008 when California opened up a small window of time to allow us to marry. I really hope that by the time you are actually able to read and understand this, the thought of two people who love each other being denied the right to get married sounds bizarre and outdated. Anyway, this method calls for a wedding ring to be tied to a strand of hair and hung over the belly. If the wedding ring moves in a strong circular motion, then you’re a girl. If the movement is pendulum in nature, then you’re a boy! While the ring was easy to get, the strand of hair was not. Daddy and Papa have short or nonexistent strands of hair, and your oldest brother has an afro, so that left your younger brother, who was not too keen on the idea of letting us yank a strand out of the blonde mop on his head. After snipping one off later that night while he slept, I tried waving the contraption over my stomach while I lay sprawled out in bed, but all I could focus on was the obvious fact that I have entirely lost my six-pack abs. This method was too depressing to continue.

It doesn’t matter if you turn out to be a boy or a girl. I’m just so happy that you have made it to the second trimester, and everything is looking great. You are part of our family now – a family that we had to work hard to make. And it’s a dream come true for two gay guys who don’t really give a meconium what the world says about it.

Two-Month Check-up

By: Kerrie Olejarz

 

 

We had been home for a few weeks and it was time for Cailyn’s two-month check up at the doctor.  We chose to stay with our family doctor and avoid a pediatrician unless absolutely necessary.  We are fortunate that our family doctor does infant care, and that we really like her.  I was excited to see Cailyn’s weight and length gains, but petrified of following through on vaccinations.  Anyone who knows me knows that I always go to my naturopath for treatments: getting a cold – I go for a vitamin and homepathic IV; feeling sluggish – I go for blood ozone treatments. So, needless to say, I feared vaccinating and Mark and I laboured over what to do.  We spent many a night discussing both the pros and cons of vaccinations, and at the end of it we were inconclusive.  Before we had left for India I spoke with the doctor about my hesitations and she made it clear that she would support our decision, whichever way we went.  After a week home, I packed up Cailyn and headed to the doctor with some anxiety.  The appointment went well; we had a general discussion on how she eats, sleeps, and poops.  Then we stripped her down to weigh her and I was pleasantly surprised to see Cailyn weigh in at 8.08lbs, up from her birth weight of 6.37lbs.  This was a perfect weight gain and put Cailyn in the fiftieth percentile.  She had also grown a whopping 4 cm in length, which also landed her in the fiftieth percentile.  The doctor did a thorough physical exam on Cailyn who did not make any fuss.  After the exam, Dr P asked me what we had decided to do with the whole vaccine drama.  She said it was her job to explain to me WHY we should vaccinate, but it was ultimately the parents’ decision on whether or not to do it.  I loved her understanding and support!  I told her we were still on the fence and needed more time.  Fortunately, Dr P totally understood and welcomed my/our hesitation.  She told me to take time to consider it further, and if we decided to vaccinate that we would use the standard vaccine schedule, just at later dates than recommended.  I felt a huge sense of relief having not been pressured into doing it right there and then.   We also discussed the craziness of Cailyn’s spitting up, and as we did so, Cailyn showed off her wonderful spitting up abilities right there in the exam room.  I was so happy she did it as she did not normally spit up a just a little bit, it was a lot.  The volume that would come out at one time was alarming , yet, not too worrisome.  The end result of the discussion was that Cailyn was gaining weight at a good pace and therefore the spitting up, at this point, was more of a laundry problem than anything. At the end of the visit I asked about the Neonatatl heel prick test as this is not standard in India.  I felt it was important to have this test to look for any rare genetic or metabolic issues. Dr P was happy to oblige and told me she would find out where we go to do this and get back to me within a few days.  Over all the first appointment at home went well, Cailyn was healthy and this is what was most important.

Freedom’s Just Another Word For Work

By: Ann Brown

There’s something that’s been bugging me since Passover. It’s the whole liberation thing. Don’t tell anyone, but…..I am just not all that into liberation.

You know what liberation brings? Responsibility.

So, um, yeah. No thanks.

As a slave in Egypt, what would I worry about? Nothing, that’s what. Room and board: check. Permanent employment: check. Year-long suntan: check. Slaves have all the damn luck. No bills to be paid, no writing deadlines, no having to choose colors for a bathroom remodel, no hours wasted perusing the Internet for vacation houses on Whidbey Island, no asparagus to return to Trader Joe’s because it had a super funky smell, no afternoons at the Toyota dealership reading magazines and eating their free popcorn while they detail my car, and no feeling bloated after a huge meal of eggplant parmigiana.

Yeah, slavery. Man, that would be the life. Sun, job security, a dip in the river. Okay, I will just say it: Why did we leave Egypt?

Was there a vote? Because I think I would have to have cast mine with the Hell No, We Won’t Go To The Promised Land movement. The drones, the slackers, the lovers of routine – these are my people.

But nooooo, we ALL had to be free, and now look at us. Liberated. Stressed. Looking for work. Texting while we drive. Throwing our underpants into the washing machine and not noticing that the used maxi pad is still stuck to it.

That would not have happened to me in Egypt.

Someday, my Pharoah will come.

I hoped Robin would be one of those misogynistic, old school chauvinist pigs who didn’t want their women to work or worry their pretty little heads about anything. I mean, he was all muscly and macho when I met him, and he dressed like Billy Jack. You hook up with a guy who wears a big black Stetson and carries a sword – you make some assumptions, you know?

Turned out, however, that macho, sword-wielding Robin was all about equality and feelings and scented candles and shit. When I told him that I wanted stay home and be a housewife, he laughed so hard one of his fillings popped out. Then we had our first major fight. That was 32 years ago. I’ll let you know when it’s over. He thinks he won because I have a job but joke on him – I go to work for, like, seven minutes a day and then I come home and I just sit up here reading Us Weekly and watching Mob Wives, and every week or so I pump out a blog post and call it a day. So maybe I did okay in the end.

Still, I would totally rock an Egyptian tan.

Hair We Go Again

By: Ted Peterson

 

I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on most aspects of parenting Mikey. The care and feeding of our three-and-a-half-year old hasn’t exactly gotten boring, but the “Oh my God, what the hell are we doing?” moments seem rarer and shallower than once they did.

The exception to this is on the subject of hair. Completely falling into the cliché of the clueless Caucasian parents, the hair of our kinky-haired heir is, pun intended, quite a tangled web.

The cliché seems to be true even among the rich and famous. While browsing around a web board for advice for our son’s hair care, I came upon several discussions about how Madonna and Angelina Jolie were not doing an adequate job caring for the hair of their respective adopted daughters, Mercy and Zahara. Obviously, there was a general acknowledgement that it’s unlikely either lady was hands on with the washing, moisturizing, and braiding, but still, the comments were withering.

The best thing Ian and I have done is embrace our ignorance. A week after we got Mikey, we brought him to his first stylist, Althea, who has classes wherein she teaches white parents how to care for their adopted black or biracial kids’ hair. Only in Los Angeles.

Althea gave us our first advice on Mikey’s hair, sending us off with a shopping list of special shampoos, conditioners, and combs. She also put the fear of God in us, letting in on the whispered conversations particularly common among black women seeing kids with badly kept hair. Almost as bad, she said, were those parents who simply shaved their boys’ hair to a shade above bald, for easy care but no personality.

No fear of that. We are fascinated with learning all things about Mikey, and hair is no exception. At least, we had a boy: anyone who has ever seen Chris Rock’s hilarious and oddly moving documentary about the politics and enormous expense behind the world of black women’s hair “Good Hair” has an inkling of how many traps are along that path.

Althea worked in a salon filled with the type of ladies “Good Hair” was about, spending many hours and lots of money on weaves, relaxers, blowouts, and other techniques completely alien to us, even as gay men who never frequent Fantastic Sam’s, and aren’t strangers at the local manicure / pedicure clip joint. Under her tender but firm hand, Mikey obediently let himself be shampooed and deep-conditioned, even sitting under the heat lamps really let his dry follicles drink deeply. Unfortunately, Althea spent most of the time chatting on her headset, and ended up clipping rather weirdly.

We held off getting Mikey’s haircut for a while, until Ian, on a whim, took Mikey into a children’s hair salon convenient to where he was shopping that day. They assured him that they could take care of African-American hair. With hindsight being 20/20, it should have been a sign when they said everyone got the same hair conditioner regardless of the texture and type of hair they were sporting. The salon was so cute with balloons and bright colors, he was seduced. I don’t blame him. It wasn’t until thirty minutes later, when he was putting Mikey into his car seat and noticed that the leave-in conditioner was turning the consistency of thick putty that he realized he’d made an error. Two shampoos and an hour later, Mikey’s hair was free of the sludge, and he was not the only one who was cranky.

We decided to skip haircutting for a while. Ian and I decided that our ideal hair for Mikey was that of Will and Jada Smith’s son Jaden, who had grown an afro two feet in circumference which he later – when he played the new Karate Kid – turned into cornrow braids. All it would take is time. We diligently did our best, and in time, he had a hairstyle we thought was very cute, a vast mane full full of corkscrew curls like mini-dreds.

This is where we faced an interesting cultural divide. Our white friends agreed with us that it was adorable. Our black friends thought that it was cute but a bit wild. No one ever said anything to us, but we started thinking about what Mikey would think, looking back on his childhood photos. Maybe it was time to brave another trim.

The next stylist we used was thanks to Groupon. A salon in Santa Monica, which had a children’s and an adult’s section, advertised a Mommy and/or Daddy & Me special, which sounded charming. Lots of dads out there imagine themselves coaching their son’s Little League games or helping them carve blocks of wood to make into pinewood derby cars. I imagined my son lying in the salon chair next to mine, both of us sighing as our stylists suds up our hair and kneaded our scalps.

Unfortunately, though the treatment was called Daddy & Me, in actuality they couldn’t do it simultaneously. It’s hard to enjoy your shampooing when you have one eye on your bored kid running around the salon. By the time Mikey could be worked on, he was ready to go and squirmy, and the stylist cut a little here and a little there. It was even less even than his last two cuts.

That was November of last year, and we haven’t taken him anywhere since then – almost six months. Mikey’s mane grew tall and wide. I came upon the name of a stylist who was praised all over Yelp, and we dragged Mikey in.

We like Mikey’s new haircut and so does he.

Here’s the advice we have received so far:

1. Don’t shampoo hair more than once a week.
2. When shampooing, use Just For Me brands.
3. When shampooing, use DevaCare No-Poo.
4. Comb hair through every bath with Kinky-Curly Knot Today.
5. Condition with Dermorganic masque once a week.
6. Moisturize and detangle daily.
7. Moisturize with Miss Jessie’s Baby Buttercreme.
8. Moisturize with jojoba oil.
9. Moisturize with olive oil.
10. Style with Kinky-Curly Curling Custard.
11. Use Infusium to make the hair more manageable.
12. Don’t use Infusium or his hair will calcify.
13. Use a Miracle Brush to detangle.
14. Use a wide-toothed comb to detangle.
15. Use nothing but your fingers to detangle.
16. Have him sleep on satin pillows, because cotton will soak up all the moisture and product

What we do with all this advice is we follow it all. Randomly. I have to say, no one has come forward to us and said we’re making our son look bad. And some folks have said we’re doing a good job with it. Of course, those are the folk we tip generously.

Of Hope and Humanity (Part Two)

By: Lisa Regula Meyer

I gave birth on a Tuesday, in the early morning, and Thursday afternoon we left the hospital. The guys were still staying in town one more night because our discharge was later in the day and they had a six-hour drive home (plus a lot of time for stops this trip). So Friday we had one last goodbye, and then they were off. A few hours after they left, we were off, to Minneapolis for my annual professional conference. My first experience with pumping and traveling, and it was quite the learning experience at that. By the way, frozen breast milk travels through TSA screenings perfectly well, while fresh is infinitely harder. Just so you know. Everything went well, and on the little one’s one-week birthday, we were on our way back home. I have to credit daddy and papa (my intended fathers) for being amazing during this time. I had emails, phone pictures, calls, and updates. We were all sharing pictures and gushing on Facebook, and things just went outstandingly well. We had talked ahead of time about how to handle afterwards, what expectations we all had, what to do and not do, so we were prepared, and I think that was a huge help in navigating those hormone-driven and sleep-deprived post-partum and early infant days. It also helped that daddy is a counselor, and deals amazingly well with people. As things calmed down and I got back into work, there were changes, obviously, but we all dealt with them as they came with copious communication. I took some time to focus on myself, and pamper myself some, not by time off of work (yeah, graduate students who want to graduate don’t really do that), but with things like eating out, massages, and using pumping time as time to read, play online, whatever. We set up a time to go visit the new family, marked the date on the calendar, and just enjoyed the end of summer. I had my prospectus defense scheduled, so I spent a lot of time getting that document ready, editing, and practicing questions (which, ironically, I’m going through again as I prep my dissertation for defense). Life was good. What no one communicated about, and what no one expected, was that Monday morning call from my mom and her husband. What no one expected was that our first reaction would be “Did her husband do it?” when we heard of Kim’s death. What no one expected was that the answer would be no. Kim had married an older man early on. She was half his age when they married in her 21st year of life. She and I had been close as kids, we’re 4.5 years apart, but our dad died when I was 14 and she was 9, so that made us closer than other kids with the same span between them. In some ways, I had thought of her and been protective of her as a mother would. By the end of that week, we would be driving across state, going to a *very* private memorial, and saying goodbye. I don’t deal with funerals well. I may do dissections frequently as a biologist and not think twice about it, but dead people freak me out. Seeing my little sis there literally took my breath away. Hearing the comments of “She looks so good” made me gag. Fewer than thirty people were allowed in to pay their respects, but my in-laws and another surrogate that was local to Kim and had known both of us came for me. Daddy and Papa sent flowers. My dear friend Kristina, who had watched Kenny when I was in labor sent cards compulsively. At my prospectus defense, ten days after Kim’s death, one of my advisors gave me a card. Towards the end of August, when the date of our big trip came up, I was informed of a second memorial for Kim. This would be the larger service, with the cousins, and extended family. This would be not the stiff pastor speaking of some other Kim, but family sharing and crying and eating, with no preserved body and a pillow carefully hiding a missing occipital bone. It was to be the same day that we would be with the new family. Again, I was separated from our family; so instead, I celebrated with “my family” by going to an outdoor concert with Daddy, Papa, and their little girl. There was music, and outdoors, and food, and love- and that was my memorial for her. To say the healing process was hard would be an understatement. We walked as a family, me, Dwight, Kenny, my mom, and her husband, in an Out of the Darkness walk in Cleveland in October. We had t-shirts printed with an image of Kim with fairy wings that I had put together. Most days, I was able to drag myself out of bed. Oddly, when I read my teaching reviews for that term, my students praised me; I laughed at how well I had managed to fool them into thinking that I wasn’t falling apart. I went to grief counseling. I still sit here, nearly ten months later, in tears as I type. Grieving is not something that gets easier with practice; I should know, I’ve done this before. And, by a huge twist of fate, my commencement and hooding this summer falls on her birthday, and just after the one-year anniversary of her death. A part of me sees her laughing somewhere over this fact, probably with our dad. She always was the drama queen, and wanted to be the center of attention. Well, this year her birthday will be for both of us. This is my payback for all the years of having to share my birthday with her half birthday. I’d take back every mean thing I said just to share a birthday with you again.

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