The Culture of Happiness

It's February.  We have had one virus after another sweeping through this house pretty much without stopping since November.  The picture above was taken the other day when the temperatures got above freezing and rain started falling on top of the melting snow.  It's sort of a picture of nothing.  Sometimes winter is really ugly.

And I really want to complain about it.  But if there's one thing I've learned in my life it's that it's not OK to sit around feeling sorry for myself.  I have learned this lesson.  But now I think that I would be better off unlearning it.  Maybe if I would allow myself to give voice to some of my misery I could actually appreciate and experience the joy.

The other day I read this piece that was basically excerpts from travel tips for Russians coming to America.  What struck me about it was the image of the smiling American: 

“US etiquette requires that you smile in each and every situation. If you want to travel to America, be prepared to give a smile not only to friends and acquaintances, but also to all passers-by, in shops, to the staff at the hotel, police on the streets, etc.
"US etiquette also forbids lamenting the troubles of life, or sharing your problems with others. Sharing in this country can only be positive emotions—sorrows and frustrations are impermissible. In the US you only complain to acquaintances in the most extreme cases. Serious problems are for close friends and relatives only.
"However, it would be wrong to believe that the Americans with their smiles only create the illusion of well-being and that their smiles are stretched with false joy. This is not so. Americans: they are a nation that truly feels happy. These people get used to smiling from the cradle onwards, so they do not pretend to be cheerful. The desire for a successful happy life is inculcated from childhood.”

 Wow.  Is this true?  Let me break it down. Compared to some countries we are definitely in-your-face, have-a-good-day, extremely-annoying smiley people.  But without having actually studied the topic in a scientific way I'd guess that people in many countries in Southeast Asia smile more in social situations.  Which is just one reason Americans come back from those countries saying "Everyone  was so friendly!"

Are we allowed to talk about our troubles?  This one is tricky.  I am not very good at figuring out the balance.  I have, you may have noticed, an almost pathological need to tell the truth.  It took me a long time to figure out that when people say "How are you?" the correct, acceptable response is almost always, "Fine!  How are you?"  In fact, it's possible (I have found from experimental evidence) to skip directly to the return "How are you?" without arousing any particular interest in response.  We are allowed to complain about the weather or the annoying roadwork in town.  But really I think the statement above is mostly right.  If you ask me how I'm doing the last thing you are expecting to hear is "Well I'm pretty depressed at the moment but I just started a new medication and I'm pretty hopeful that it will help."

I think that in Evangelical Christian circles this tendency is even more extreme.  We are children of God, right?  How awesome is that?!?!!!!  I mean "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God" right?  We may be a little uncomfortable at the moment, but failing to be thankful for all our blessings?  Not cool.  How does that Sunday School song go?  "I'm so happy, so very happy, I've got the love of Jesus in my heart!"

And how about the last part of the quote from above?  Are we, Americans, actually as happy as our smiling faces would indicate?  Are we faking it?  Somewhere in between, I'd say.  Really, I'd rather live in the Midwest than anywhere in Eastern Europe.  I don't want to sound too ethnocentric.  It's just that I think that stuff like access to healthcare and personal liberty to say nothing of education and fresh vegetables, no matter how flawed it may seem to us, probably increases our chances of being happy.  And our habit of looking "on the bright side" may actually work in our favor.

BUT  You knew that was coming, right?  I'm not trying to pull a fast one here.  The implication from the quote above, in my mind, is that people in Russia have one advantage over any American any day of the week.  They are allowed to have a really crappy day.  And say so.  To anyone who happens to have the audacity to ask them about it.  Also they consume a lot of vodka which is killing them and I wouldn't recommend that, but I would like to propose that we indulge in some authenticity and most of all that we give others the gift of being allowed to have really crappy days.  To acknowledge that our pain and sadness are real.  To stop measuring against the suffering of others and just be in our own sadness for a little while.

A blast from my past:  I have a vivid memory of being in second grade, lined up with my classmates singing,

"Be thankful for the good things that ya got.
Oh be thankful for the good things that ya got.
The good things that ya got are for many just a dream.
So be thankful for the good things that ya got."

This was not a song that was a regular part of the Sunday school song line up.  Our teacher made a point of teaching it to us and having us practice it.  I think that she was trying to make a point.  We were going to school on the outskirts of Manila, in the Philippines.  It was pretty much impossible to go anywhere in that city without seeing people who only dreamed of our lives.  I'm guessing that she got tired of hearing kids complain about having to wait in line for the drinking fountain or not having the right kind of pencil when all around us people were wondering what they were going to feed their kids that night or whether the baby would survive the latest round of diarrhea. 

Within six months prior learning that song I had left the country of my birth and all but four of the people I was related to.  It was the first year I was in boarding school.  (I was one of only a few "dorm kids" in that class.)  So it was the first year I wasn't with my parents on my birthday.  The year I learned to pack my stuff for trips home.  The year I learned what it meant to have a room mate.  I was seven years old.  Or maybe eight.

Don't get me wrong.  I had plenty to be thankful for.   I was getting a first rate education.  Every day when I got home from school someone checked my bag.  Every night someone tucked me into bed.  My days started with a hot breakfast and ended with an evening snack.  In truth my worries were few and my blessings were many.

But the message of the song was clear:  Don't complain.  Don't be ungrateful.  We have decided that enough of your needs are being met.  If this is painful or scary or boring or lonely or confusing to you we don't want to hear about it.  Put on your happy face.  Don't make my life uncomfortable by bringing up the downside of this situation.

I took it to heart.    What I learned was that not having a good day, not being grateful for the blessings in my life (pretty much non-stop) was a character flaw.   It didn't keep me from having times when I felt sad or lonely or confused.  Or even from telling other people about it.  It just meant that while I was doing it I was also a failure.  And when I wasn't having a crappy day I was not so much happy as avoiding failure.  Relieved, at the moment, but not really free to experience the joy.

I'm sure this wasn't the only time I got that message.  It wasn't just that teacher or that year.  It was the culture I was in.  Am still in.  And to be fair, I am that responsible oldest child who tries endlessly to live up to everyone's expectations of me.  I know other people who got the same message and said, (essentially) "screw you, I'm miserable right now and I'm going to let you know it."

I realize as an adult how easy it is to send the message of enforced gratefulness to our children. Since he turned five Lenny has been having the year of unmet needs and desires.  He would like me to be his constant playmate and conversation partner.  But I'm busy and exhausted and rarely manage to read him a story or work on a puzzle with him.  He expresses his frustration by saying "You never play with me!"  Of course I want to defend myself.  I point out the latest walk we took or the time I took him to the library.

But that's not the point.  When I really get it right is when I realize that what he's really saying is that he has needs that he feels are not being met.  It doesn't matter that so many of his needs are met all the time.  It's not about the joy he takes in his little brother or the time his dad spends taking him to music class.  It's about that particular moment feeling lonely and boring and crappy.  When I really get it right I say, "I'm sorry you're having a bad day."  Not "look at how it's good" or "I'm doing my best" (both of which I do also sometimes say) but "I see that this is not what you wish it could be."

So that maybe he can learn that it's not his job to be happy.  It's his job to be real.  It's OK to notice when he is not happy.  It's OK to enjoy the times when he is happy and not worry about the next time someone asks "How are you doing?"  Because he's fine.  Or not.  I hope I can learn that lesson too.  And I hope I survive February.  And I'd like a lot less snot in the house.

Forrest Gump Quotes that Are Still Stuck in My Head

Selfies.  If Gump were around today he'd be taking a few, I bet.

 Wow!  It's been twenty years since Forrest Gump came out.  I knew I was old but...  I didn't realize it had been that long until I googled it to make sure I wasn't doing something embarrassing like spelling Forrest wrong.  Which is funny because I could have sworn I watched it in high school, but that would have made it even older.  It's amazing that the movie is still in my head.

I have a British friend who told me once (also years ago now) that she could poke all kinds of holes in the plot of the movie.  I advised her not to.  I told her that the movie was not about a great plot.  It was about walking through iconic moments in American history with a character who unwittingly reveals what they mean to us as a country.  Well I might not have said that exactly, but that's what I meant.  Memory is a funny thing, isn't it?  Maybe it wasn't like that for everyone, but for someone like me who had spent more time out of the country than in it when I watched the movie it spoke to being an American.  For an earlier generation than mine, but one that has had a huge impact on the country.  What would we do without Baby Boomers?

The reason I bring it up is that a few lines from the movie still pop into my head on at least a weekly basis.  And so, in case you need a stroll down memory lane, here they are in no particular order....

"Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." (Link is to a Youtube video of the scene.  Like the person who posted it, I'm not sure about copyright issues, but if you want to watch it, it's there at the moment.)  It's a very serious scene where Jenny throws rocks at the crumbling house where she was abused as a child.  But she runs out of rocks and throws her shoe before crumpling onto the ground in despair.  Most of the time, though, when it occurs to me I'm thinking of some small commodity that I know won't really solve the problems in my life, but I keep grasping at anyway.  "Sometimes there just aren't enough chocolate covered raisins" for example.

"That's good.  One less thing!"  Forrest says this when he finds out that he doesn't have to worry about money any more because some "fruit" (stock in a new computer company) that his friend invested in turned out to be worth a lot.  Forrest didn't seem to be worried about much in life, but I tend to feel pretty overwhelmed most of the time.  So if the five-year-old tells me he ate his breakfast or I don't have to figure out what to make for supper because we're going out to eat I think, "Hey!  One less thing!"  And then I usually think about all the ways that having tons of money could take the pressure off and make life SO much easier.  Daydreaming happens.

Which brings me to the one that I have, in spite of my "no particular order" claim, been saving for last.  "Shit happens."  OK, I'm pretty sure that this didn't originate with this movie.  But I lived a pretty sheltered life (in some ways) and this is where I heard it first.  (People who know me can testify that profanity is not usually a part of my vocabulary, but it can be very useful, I have discovered.)  Some days I want to adopt this quote as my life motto.  Sure, it can be comforting and empowering to believe that things happen for a reason.  That we can impact the outcomes in our lives or that someone outside the flow of history is pulling strings on our behalf.  But sometimes it's just exhausting.  Sometimes I don't want to know how war or starving children or my latest three day migraine or yet another blowout diaper fit into the grand scheme of things.  Sometimes it's shitty (literally).  And sometimes it just happens.  Fatalism has it's attractions at this point in my life.

"That's all I have to say about that."  Oh looky!  One more!  These quotes just all go together like peas and carrots.  OK, stopping now.

Some questions people ask when they find out I'm an MK (and the excruciatingly honest answers) Part 1

 
I don't want to write about this.  I avoid thinking about it as much as I can.  But after I wrote a post about being a TCK one of my parent's coworkers sent me a friend request on Facebook and said some kind words about my blog.  Then I was talking to my dad and he mentioned that she has a blog.  So I checked it out. I read what she had to say about her kids growing up as TCKs.  I thought about other friends my age who have taken their families to another country for the purpose of advancing the kingdom.  Mostly, like I usually do (which is why I don't like to think about it) I got a little weepy and a little PTSD-ish.  To try to distract myself from the raw emotion I started mentally composing this blog entry.  As a form of distraction it has so far failed miserably.

The most common question people ask me when they find out that I grew up in another country is:  Did you like it?  And the excruciatingly honest answer is no.  I did not.

Up front I usually blame boarding school which was not a good fit for me.  If the person I'm talking to is not familiar with the Evangelical missions scene I try to give a brief description of the excellent care I got in "family style" dorms and the excellent education I got at a school for Missionary kids.  I'm not trying to run anybody down.  It was just extremely difficult for me to be separated from my parents.  And being cared for by people who did not hold you as a newborn, watch you take your first steps and who will most likely not be at your college graduation or wedding can cause problems.  Lets just call it difficulty communicating - lack of a bond that might otherwise naturally exist.

But thanks to the work of other MKs (Ruth Van Reken is a good example) this type of living situation is much less common these days.  So when I read about my friends taking their kids across borders to that issue is not what tugs at my heart.  The parts of not liking being an MK that I rarely talk about are parts that MKs today still deal with, as far as I can tell. Leaving all the time.  Not growing up near extended family.  The anxiety of making new friends - or the loneliness of not figuring out how.  The discomfort of living someplace hot and crowded and dirty where stepping outside the front door always immediately reminds you that you are not like the people around you.  The strangeness of returning to a place your supposed to be from and not knowing the people or understanding their lives.

It probably sounds shallow.  Especially in light of the fact that the reason we were there was to share the most important message that could possibly be spoken with people who desperately needed to hear it.  But that's the truth.  And the importance of the life was not a comfort to my childhood self.  It was a burden.  I did not choose the sacrifices that made me unhappy.  But asking for them to be removed meant asking my parents to give up a calling from God.  If they made changes that could have made my life easier they would have to sell short their desire to obey the final command that Jesus gave during His time on earth.  So being unhappy felt like being selfish.

I've talked a little about this with parents who are becoming missionaries, but they usually don't say much.  I think that they are thinking "We will do it differently.  We will do better.  Our children are different.  They will be happy.  We've read the books.  We have a plan."

I hope so.  I hope it works.  The intensity of the writing and attention focused on MKs today is probably good.  But it also tells me that this is still a stressful life for children as well as parents.  It's a reality that isn't going to change.  Moving is a stressful life event.  Moving to another country - moving back and forth between countries - is even more stressful.

Another argument that I've heard and that I still make inside my head is that there were benefits to that life that few others have.  The breadth of experience and insight, the relationships that run deep.  The lifelong appreciation of hot running water.  These are not lightly gained and are parts of myself that I would not want to lose.  Please don' t get me wrong.  Some things about the Philippines I love.  I have fond memories both specific and general of my life there.  My life today is richer because of my experiences growing up.

In our discussions when I was growing up and as an adult we also talked about the fact that any choice a parent makes has implications for their children.  Parents who stay close to extended family and work at more conventional jobs may find that their children feel bored and trapped and long for adventure.  And certainly there's a lot being said these days about the dangers of making our whole lives about our kids - the unrealistic ideas this gives them about their relationship with the world. 

But the bottom line for me is that it's an extreme lifestyle choice.  Who knows if I would have been happier if my parents had made a more conventional choice.  Certainly I would not have been happier if I had spent my life knowing that I was the reason they could not do what seemed most important to them.  But I guess that's the question that still lingers in my mind:  Was I less important than those they went to reach?  Was my (possibly fleeting) happiness sacrificed for their (opportunity of) eternal salvation?  Are other children in a similar position?  Can this be changed?

  Other questions:  Did/do you want to be a missionary?  Why would someone do that?  I've probably touched on these.  Hopefully I can cover them in more depth in another post.

My Mantra. Remember. (Again)

This is a post I wrote earlier this year on my other blog.  It fits right in with what I wrote about the "remembering self" yesterday so I'm re-posting it here.  I should spiff it up and add some links, but there dad is sick and we had four (at least) more inches of snow last night and didn't make it to church and both boys are pile up on top of me on the bed so in the interest of actually getting it done I'm just changing the names and posting it as it is.  Maybe I'll add the links later.....

The other day Lenny was playing with Linus and he said, "Mommy, I'm being you.  I'm getting drool on me!"  I didn't get a chance to write it down right then, but I remembered.  At least for a few days.

I read a "mommy blog" today by someone who's kids are older.  She was saying she wished she had worried less and enjoyed her kids more when they were little.  I thought, "I wonder if she really remembers what it was like."  So intense.  So exhausting.  Enjoy doesn't really seem like the right word.  Maybe treasure is a better word.

I want to remember.  And I want to treasure this time when my children are so small and so dependent.  But it's turning my brain into jelly.  Today I couldn't remember if yesterday was the first time this year I'd left the house.  Turns out it wasn't.  Most significant, probably, since we found out that Linus has "hand, foot and mouth disease."  In his case this means that he has a broken blister on the roof of his mouth - near the back.  Most likely why he's been sleeping so poorly and why I thought he had a sore throat.

I know from when Lenny was a baby that it's impossible to remember everything.  New experiences and sensations and interactions flood in at an amazing rate and wipe the old ones away.  And it's hard to treasure the moments because the exhaustion, the chaos, the thousand and one demands and needs and details crowd in.  At the very moment that I'm thinking, "This is such a beautiful moment" I'm also thinking, "I need sleep so bad it hurts and I'm hungry and the baby needs a new diaper and Lenny has had WAY too much screen time this week and could someone just get me out of here for a few minutes?!?"

But it's like a mantra in my head.  It's why I take pictures and blog.  I want to remember.  I want to see that it's beautiful and find the pleasure that's in it.  I want to treasure it.

It's laying in the bed in the half-dark with the baby straddling my stomach.  And he leans forward and rivets his eyes on mine and soundlessly chomps his mouth open and shut like he's imparting the secret wisdom of the universe.  Remember.

It's his soft hands that smell slightly sour and have razor sharp edges on the corners of the fingernails searching for my face and grabbing handfuls of it when he's upset or nursing and about to fall asleep.  It hurts but my heart knows that it's good that I am what he reaches for when he needs comfort.  Remember.

It's the first time he sees his dad and throws his weight over in his direction.  The first time he cries when a toy he was playing with falls down.  First tooth, roll over, solid food, Christmas.  First toy he baptizes with drool, first jammies he grew out of, first blankets he snuggled under.  So many firsts already and so many to come.  I realized today that babies start out as only a promise.  Then they encounter the world and they grow and are formed.  And we are here.  A part of it.  And we see it.  We can treasure it.  And remember.

It's his own little way of interacting with the world.  It's the way he blows air through his lips or gargles his saliva.  The way he lights up when he sees his big brother, snuggles with his Grammy or plays patty-cake with his great Granny.  The way he stirs in his sleep, opening his mouth and turning his head in search of comfort.  It's the way he babbles and sings at home but is quiet and watchful when we go out.  The way he protests if he can't see what the other people in the room are doing.  The way he pumps his legs when he's held upright.  The way he looks at the back of his hands or pulls his feet toward his face to get a better look.  Notice these.  Remember.

It's the physical changes that come so fast in the first year.  Starting so bald with invisible eyelashes and brows that grow in red.  That little strip of thicker hair in the middle of his head that makes him look like a combination of a rebellious teen and a balding forty-something with a bad comb-over.  Those jowly cheeks and chubby thighs.  That rolled over ear from laying so long on it in my belly.  The soft, dented skull that turns rock hard.  The toothless grin that gradually fills in.  Watch this.  Remember.

It's how I keep from getting swallowed up by the intensity - by the fatigue and relentless needs and identity swallowing crush - of being a mom.  It's how I get through these totally overwhelmed and tearful days.  It's my mantra.  Remember.

It's trying to write a blog post and stopping a dozen times because he's bored and needs another clean diaper and is getting tired.  It's leaving him on the changing table to get it done because for some reason he's much more patient there.

So much in these early months and years.  So much to notice and treasure and remember.  Once it's over I'll say "It was gone in a flash."  But I think I'll also always say, "It's such an intense time."  I want to remember.  I want it to be part of what I treasure and take pleasure in through every other stage of his life.  Maybe I will.  Maybe I can.  For now I just have to get him off the changing table because he's run out of patience.

In Which I Solve the Mystery of Mommy Blogging

I'm sitting on the bed in the clothes I've been wearing for the past thirty-six hours.  The baby in sitting on my lap with (just a little) sweet potato on his face.  He needs a clean diaper but you don't need to be seven months into the second baby to know that it's good to wait a few minutes on that one.  I have a head ache that pain killers and a sort of almost decent night of sleep barely touched.  I'm typing with one hand.

Why do I do this?  Why do I compose blog entries (in my head) while trying to get back to sleep at three in the morning or on my way home from dropping Lenny off at school?  Well besides the fact that it's pretty impossible to compose blog entries while on the way to drop him off because of all the questions and comments coming from the back seat. 

I figure a couple of different reasons work pretty well.  In more or less equal parts I....

• want to hear my grown up voice.
• am trying to impose some order on what otherwise feels pretty chaotic.
• want to remember this beautiful, crazy, super-intense time.
• like to keep in touch with family members.
• like attention and affirmation from the folks in my digital community.

About this last point:  I'm not proud.  I'll admit that being a stay-at-home mom can be lonely and thankless.  In the midst of a day of "mommy look at this" I sometimes like other people to look at me too.

Also, this is not my main "mommy blog."  I have another one that I started way back in the days when Lenny was a baby.  It's not a "how to" or a food blog or an advice or opinion blog.  It's just the story of our family.  And I wasn't really thinking about internet security when I started it, so it has lots of personal details about our family in it.  I sort of try to keep it hidden.  I may end up needing to password protect it. This blog, that you are reading right now, is an experiment.  An attempt to see if I can write "stuff" that a broader audience will be interested in.  Also, I'm trying to see if I have a "voice" - something I really want to write about.  Or something I'm good at writing about.  So anything goes at the moment, pretty much.

Obviously I'm not alone in feeling drawn to blogging.  I've been reading "mommy blogs" lately and there are literally thousands to choose from.  Groups of moms blogging together.  Moms with famous twitter feeds.  Networks of moms who pool ideas about what to write about.  There are sentimental, humorous, practical, honest, encouraging, self deprecating, tragic and triumphant blogs.  And of course many that have various of those elements at different times.  Just lots of blogs.

So do they all have the same motive I do?  Well without asking...any of them I would like to suggest that most likely they do.  Also I think that we all share the following motive, which I hadn't really considered until I read a couple of articles pretty much back-to-back and was hit with an epiphany. 

First of all I read this article about a Danish writer who is inspired by a Swedish film maker who said that seeking out solitude is important for writers because (my summary) writing is tumultuous enough without adding a bunch of drama. He said he felt like he contained "too much humanity" and it was squeezing out of him.  But this quote at the beginning of the article really grabbed my attention:

"Conventional wisdom tells us pain is good for art. Genius, the logic goes, is best drunk, unhappy, destitute, scarred by war or parenting, buoyed by illegal drugs or Merck."

"Scarred by war or parenting"?!?  I love it.   I don't know if I would write more or better if I had solitude.  I doubt it.  I actually had a TON of solitude for several years and mostly wrote tortured journal entries that I do not want to reread myself let alone share.  At the moment the humanity doesn't have to squeeze out of me like a defective tube of toothpaste.  It's swirling around me like....water about to rush out of a toilet bowl?  No, that's not right.  Wind in a tornado?  Maybe better.  It's definitely swirling around me like something that makes a big mess and leave me feeling breathless and traumatized.  And I don't know if it's producing some kind of genius, but it does compel me to write stuff down.

But why this story of my crazy, normal, beautiful and monotonous mommy life?  Why not make something up?  Is it just because it's what I know?  Or maybe the reasons listed above are enough.  But then I found another one which is more elegant and might just go right to the heart of the matter.

I saw an interview of Jennifer Senior, the author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood a few days ago.  It looked interesting.  She talks about why parenting has become such an intense emotional experience.  How we see our children as precious even as they have (historically) lost any economic "value."  Then I saw this review which had more detail and this great quote (I'm quoting the article, which quotes the book.):

Senior draws on the psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s distinction between the “experiencing self” that exists in the present moment and the “remembering self” that constructs a life’s narrative. “Our experiencing selves tell researchers that we prefer doing the dishes — or napping, or shopping, or answering emails — to spending time with our kids. . . . But our remembering selves tell researchers that no one — and nothing — provides us with so much joy as our children. It may not be the happiness we live day to day, but it’s the happiness we think about, the happiness we summon and remember, the stuff that makes up our life-tales.”

 That's it!  I write partly because the swirl of humanity compels me.  But mostly, I write - I "mommy blog" to become the "remembering self."  It's not just that I want to remember at some distant time in the future when the house is quiet and clean (ha!) and my little ones have outgrown my loving arms.  No.  I need to remember now.  I need to become the rememberer.  The one who finds joy in my children, who sees the beauty and the humor and the love in our every day crazy-making lives.  I need to find the self that is not overwhelmed, tired and just about fed up and listen to her for a little while.  I need her to tell me that the first sleepy smiles of the day, imprinted on my still-sleep-starved brain though they are, are precious.  I need her to point out the funny, ironic, and amazingly intelligent sayings of my children.  I want to see how they are sweet and compassionate and full of exciting potential.  I need, for a few moments, to become the one who sees my life that way.  As joyful, satisfying and something that I love.

Mystery solved.  That's why I do it.  And I think probably a few other "mommies" blog for that reason too.