Category: Parenting

Dear Family Holiday Letter: More Presence, Less Presents

11/29/2017

This post is a letter (below) that I drafted in response to the growing number of parents who want their kids to have less stuff during the holidays. Yep: Less presents under the tree.

Why? Because we notice that it just doesn't feel good — kids often feel overwhelmed by all the presents, their attention scattered, and we all end up wondering in one way or another, where all the appreciation and togetherness went. We also wonder about what we're teaching our children through our holiday behaviors... about what life is really about, and also about our impact on Planet Earth, which is nothing less than our life support system. Hmmm...

Perhaps, dear fellow parents of children on Planet Earth, it's time for us to shift the focus a bit.

As with e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g I write or say, there is no one right way. Something that's "right" for my family may not be right for yours, and vice versa. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest.

Please feel free to cut and paste this letter and use it as you choose, with your name on it and edited for your family and vision, to support yourself during the holidays. Letter writing is my lifelong pleasure and it gives me GREAT joy to share it with you.

Dear Family,

As Christmas approaches, I am being courageous and communicating about something important to me, even though it’s a bit awkward and out of my comfort zone. Being courageous in communicating about things that are important to her is what I’d want my daughter to do — so shouldn’t I model this courage myself?

In giving myself permission to communicate this with you and others who I care deeply about, I ask that you first and foremost keep in mind that: 1) I love you, 2) I value you and all the ways you are generous with our daughter, and 3) this is nothing personal about any one person, including you. It is simply an expression of our family values — something we genuinely believe in — and I trust that you will receive this in a spirit of curiosity, with an open mind and a warm heart.

Here’s what we’ve noticed.

Whenever our daughter receives a lot of presents, she feels overwhelmed. It’s like her nervous system is frayed, and she can’t seem to appreciate or focus on any one thing. It’s as if she would prefer quality time rather than a lot of presents. It’s as if she is — without words — asking us to “step up our game” and show her how meaningful life can be without material excess.

She is fortunate. We are fortunate. And we’re grateful. So grateful that, in fact, we want to extend our gratitude into a family challenge to focus our time and attention more on laughter, music, conversation, cooking together — rather than having a holiday that is swimming in stuff.

We want this for our daughter, so that her holiday memories are rooted in the sharing of love. Yes, presents are usually given with love. Yet — they can also easily overwhelm children, and there is a growing movement among parents who recognize this overwhelm and want to teach their children how to live with less stuff. And less debt.

We also want our daughter to know that this living planet we call home — Mother Earth — is our life support system, and that we honor her future on it. We want her to know that buying more stuff is not good for the planet we love — which is her home.

My wish for our daughter is that she receive one very special gift from her family at Christmas. When we sit around our tree on Christmas morning, we would like her to revel — with attentiveness, presence and joy — in one very special gift her family has come together to purchase for her. We want her to feel what it's like to thoroughly appreciate and enjoy one gift. The magic of presence.

Trust me, if you want to be part of this gift I will be sure she knows that you are, as is anyone else who contributes to make it happen.

This year, we’re still on the case 😉 investigating what one “big” thing she would like for Christmas. Maybe it’s ice skates or a sled, or a day in the snow with a friend. Maybe handmade doll clothes. If you would like to contribute, please let me know.

If there is something special that you want to give her, let’s do it at a time when we can be with you, outside the holiday rush perhaps over a peaceful dinner, spending quality time enjoying the gift of your generosity and the huge blessing of your love in our lives.

Thank you.

Love,
Jessica

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Heartbreak and Humility: The Shedding of Innocence of the Inner Child

4/17/2017

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(also published in Holistic Parenting Magazine, spring 2017)

I don’t remember the day when my innocence bubble broke. Was it as a baby, when my sister unintentionally dropped me off our spiral staircase and I broke my arm? Was it that first time someone gave me sugar as a child, to comfort my emotions rather than just holding me? Was it that traumatic day when I was six years old and heard my parents argue in front of us for the first time and then my mother left, it was over, and our family life changed forever?

Or was it all those moments piled on top of each other, showing this one human girl child that the world is not always a friendly place, wiping away the rainbows from my eyes?

Over thousands of moments in our lives, layers of innocence shed away from our perception as we become aware of the not-so-kind ways of the world. For every person it looks different depending on if and when trauma is experienced, how loving our family is or isn’t, how much exposure we had to violence in our childhood, and many other factors.

In his book The Optimal Life, Dr. Stephen Bizal writes, “Starting in the womb, at the time of conception, we are exposed to, vulnerable to, and influenced by the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical energy of the world around us.”

To Be Hardened or To Stay Soft

Hardened by the roughness of the world and life’s challenges, many people hold a perspective that this is genuinely the way it is, and there is no point in giving other perspectives much consideration.

“That’s just the way it is,” people often say. “Welcome to reality.”

Yet my own inner child refuses to accept that. And she’s a wise one; I support her. While I’ve not been immune to the busting of the innocence bubble or our cultural oppression of The Inner Child, I have never buried the little girl inside of me. She has danced freely, in one way or another, ever since the day I was born.

When I really sit with the dynamic of the innocence bubble breaking — my own, my child’s or anyone else’s — it breaks my heart.

Grieving is appropriate. Mourning is essential. To not feel the sadness is to not fully see the beauty and innocence, the pure light shining in the heart of every human child.

What is Reality, Really?

While mainstream culture suggests we toughen kids up to face the “real” world, a contrasting perspective is offered by those on the gentler edges of living who know that Love is the only way to a society that is truly well and free. Isn’t it the case that toughened people create a toughened world, and those who’ve been treated with firm yet compassionate, kind and gentle love are the ones best suited to lead us toward a culture that respects and honors life?

In the words of writer Margaret Halsey, “The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is, above all else, a variable. With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.”

Without parents who insist on preserving innocence as much as we possibly can for our children, we’d be left with a world of tough parenting and tough children who spend more time healing old wounds as adults than creating from a free-spirited, spacious and fertile field seeded with the constancy of Love. A more caring society depends on parents who are willing to find a genuine balance of preserving innocence and teaching the skills required to face the unkind ways of the world.

Creating from Sweetness and Ferocity

Mama Bear can be a sweet, soft and tender bear. Licking her cubs, plucking berries from the bushes with her strong pearly teeth, peering with her dark loving eyes into the morning light. But Mama Bear ‘aint just sweet like honey. And human mothers are no different when we’re at our best. We can be gentle and kind while still having access to the fierce Mama Bear within us, as we guide our growing children.

Last week I dropped into an unexpected mourning period when I learned my 4-year-old daughter is being exposed to "rough" behavior and words at her incredibly darling Waldorf preschool. Yeah, surprise surprise, humans are humans and no school is immune. Kids are going to do and say things that they learn from older kids, or see somewhere on TV, and bring it back to their preschool, however cherubic the place might be. No shock — to the brain in my head.

But my heart? Shattered.

I wanted to crawl into a cave with my cub and take her away from all the roughness. It felt like all the choices her father and I have made to preserve her innocence were suddenly being threatened. Despite how much we respect and value the teacher-caretakers there, this is still our baby we’re talking about. Can’t we just wait a bit longer to let her start being exposed to this stuff? And indeed, as I have reflected intensely about all this, and cried, I have insisted on holding her close, feeling from her a shared desire to be near me. It’s almost like a question is lingering in her air... Where is my innocence going?

Stepping Up to the High Bar

No, I don’t think everyone should be with their kids all the time so we can keep them from a mean world. That’s creating from fear, and it won’t create a world of Love. But I do think we should question ourselves when we put on a “that’s just the way it is” hat. It’s not the way it is. It’s the way we allow it to be. There is a firmer stance for kindness that we can all take. Looking within ourselves and looking at our parenting, we can do a little less tolerating and a little more standing strong for the sake of love being “the way it is.” Shouldn’t we aim for this, anyway?

Living up to the high bar children present to us, is galaxies away from easy. It is some of the Great Work in being human, whether you’re a parent or not. And none of us will ever be perfect at it.

Sweetness is the world many of us dream of, when we think of what our children are worth. A colorful, considerate, compassionate world. This is the “world” we want to create in our own homes, and speaking for our household, we’re about 80% there. That leaves room for improvement, and in my deep true core I will not let my daughter down.

Here Comes the Mirror

So I’ll call us out and I’ll call us all out. What are we modeling with our own behaviors that might be rubbing off onto our children? Do we use our voices in a fearful way to get them to comply? Do we always respect our own needs — for rest, for joy, for acknowledgment, for physical touch — or do we let ourselves be undernourished? How often do we reach out to show kindness to strangers who could use a loving gesture, or how often do we pretend it’s none of our business? How often do we notice something unkind under our own roof and yet choose not to name it? Are we too busy in The Land of the Computer Phone to seize the chance to speak our stand for Love?

Ultimately, the more prepared a person is to face the world in all its moods, the better off they’ll be. Each child needs the tools, inside and out, to live in whatever world they experience.

Tools, Teaching and Learning

We want our children to know how to handle conflict. We want our children to choose friends who respect and value them. We want our children to feel confident in their own skin. We want our children to seek approval from within themselves rather than from other people. We want our babies, when they leave our nests, to have learned to celebrate who they are, complete with whatever makes them different or flawed in the eyes of a very confused, spiritually hollow, over-consumptive and commercialized society.

How better to learn, ourselves, than to teach?

Our children are evolved beyond us, yet they still need our guidance about how to be in the world. They know how to feel, but they don’t necessarily know how to tell someone else — a dear friend or a bigger kid at school — how they feel. It is our job, far more than it is a teacher’s job, to show them how to honor and express their feelings. To take care of themselves, emotionally as well as physically. I’ve told my daughter before that sometimes people are not kind, but she’s not experienced this much first hand. Now that she is seeing it for herself among people she knows, it’s a whole new world. A break-mama’s-heart world.

But broken hearts can emerge with beautiful, fiery power. And I can step up to that burning plate and tell my daughter that I am sad the world isn’t always kind. And I am sorry I am not always kind — sometimes I’m grumpy and impatient — but that I always love her, and I am learning too, and I want to do better. And that we can help each other.

The Big Huge Glaring T Word

Mountainous within all this is a word that captures the single greatest thing we can do for our children: Trust.

As we teach and learn communication tools, as we look in the mirror to step up and model more of what we want our children to learn, we must also do the enormous spiritual work of trusting our children. This is very, very simple and very, very difficult — for most of us anyway.

Most of us are busy feeling superior over our children, or putting them on a pedestal and letting them “rule the world” with no boundaries, or some combination of those extremes.

What does it mean to actually trust your child? Does it mean letting them lead the way all day long every day? Does it mean slacking in our parenting role? Does it mean letting them rule the roost, or allowing them to do things that don’t feel right to you as a parent? No, it doesn’t mean any of these. Trust is the big huge giant in the human experience — or one of them, anyway. It is one of the greatest spiritual lessons we face and although it isn’t easy for anyone, we all are all naturally capable of learning how to trust.

(Stay tuned for a follow-up piece on Trusting our Children.)

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Chorus of Compassion: Pain as Messenger

4/6/2017

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As I laid in bed yesterday, the left side of my head ripping apart from the inside with constant pressing pain, it felt like the end of a burning softball bat was pressing against my blood vessels. Migraine #8 has been an acutely painful dance. Life from here on out must look different. I cannot live with this kind of pain. I must hear the message it is meant to bring. I surrender.

Have you been in pain like this? Are you among the 19% of women with migraines or chronic back pain, or some other bodily agony? What about your child – are you a mother whose child lives with Crohn’s Disease, another autoimmune disorder, a vaccine related injury or some other kind of pain?

Pain is, above all things, a messenger. Suffering does not need to happen as long as we listen to the message that pain brings and tune in to what is being asked of us – we are, in pain, always being asked… something.

On the very bright side, there is unlimited love right at our very own fingertips. We can speak sweet words to ourselves in our own minds. This nurtures our hearts. We can tend to our physical pain with massage, acupuncture, plant medicine. This nurtures our body. We can take time for ourselves to be spacious, rather than planning too much. This tends to our soul. We can tend to our own body, heart, and soul in many ways and this is always available to us at no cost, with no delay, and with no limits.

How rich we are, that we can love ourselves like this! That we can model for our children what it means to care for the self. That we can create a reality, by “being the change we wish to see in the world” as Gandhi said – a world that is more gentle, more kind, more delightful than before we found it.

Beyond the riches of our own capacity for self-love, there lies an oceanic swell of love felt for us by others. Whether or not we see it, it is absolutely there.

As my most painful migraine thus far carried on, the option of caring for it “all by myself” disappeared. There was no way I could function; I had to call for help. At 6:30am one morning, a neighbor went out into the world to buy medicine and bring it to my doorstep, while my brain felt as if it were about to explode. What was going on in my head? I didn’t know. But I did know I needed help, and he rose to the occasion before the sun came up.

That was when it became clear this was no time to pretend I was independent. We need each other.

A chorus of compassion started singing in my head. I thought of all the other women in the world who experience painful migraines. I thought of the men who do, too. Many of those women and men don’t have friendly neighbors who’ll run errands at the crack of dawn – or worse yet, they don’t have the inner self worth to ask for the help in the first place. My heart swelled with compassion for the emptiness, the hole, the sad state of being so many people live in while living with pain. My life is full of soulfully rich relationships. Many people’s lives are not. And even with rich relationships, life presents significant, sometimes lengthy and seemingly insurmountable challenges. How tough must it be for those people who don’t have this kind of relationship wealth in their lives?

Sidled up to my compassion for others who experience migraines is a batch of compassion for mothers who wanted to give birth vaginally and ended up with a C-section. Some mothers truly mourn the loss of the labor they dreamed of; others are fine with whatever turned out. I feel for the ones who felt a loss, as I too experienced labor-related trauma, even though it was after a vaginal home birth.

Sidled up next to these compassion wells is a deep bay of feeling for those who struggle with emotional eating, overindulging in sugary foods, and deep loneliness. I have faced these dark valleys, and they are not sweetened by the breath of spring lilacs. There is charcoal lining the way. What I would give – I’d give a lot – to soothe the aches and sorrows of anyone suffering along these painful trails.

That’s a lot of compassion. And it’s only my own.

I thought of all the friends and family who offered – from the abundant goodness in their hearts – acupuncture and massage and magnesium in the mail and child care, care packages at my doorstep and fiercely empowering text messages to my very soul. The mountain of compassion embodied in these hearts astounded me.

How sad it is that anyone on Earth ever feels alone in their pain. How unnecessary and inappropriate this is, when every woman, man and child on this planet has access to this riveting chorus of kindness, love, compassion.

There is only the space of one single thought in between any single person – you, your partner, your child, your mother, your neighbor or best friend, or the homeless person on the city sidewalk – and this chorus of compassion that can soothe all the pain in the world. Sit with this. If your child lives with pain, if you live with pain, stop pretending this is not available to you.

All the love in the world belongs to all of us; it is no one’s alone and could never be.

Let us teach our children, first by modeling ourselves, the importance of self-care for a life well lived. That their mother and father are worth all the asking for help, all the affirming mantras, all the pauses and song that are needed to fill up one precious human soul in the busyness of life lived these days.

When our child is in pain, let us show them how to treat it like a friend – to listen to it, to love it like it has something important to say. It does. And our children, energetic masters of feeling and presence, will be glad to step up into seeing their pain as the messenger it is. Let us remind them of the compassion-filled universe awaiting their requests, their calling, their ask. Let us help them lead the way.

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No Love Like Dog Love... Farewell Rosco Pup

1/17/2017

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My Love... my sweet Hjalmar...

You were such a good papa to Rosco. It is a sign of his brilliance that he found you, an old gentle soul whose presence is ancient like a rock whipped coarse by the ocean.

You found him at one year old, and for 14 years he got to live by your side running free, chasing squirrels, swimming in a freshwater creek hole more beautiful than most humans ever even get to see.

When we began dating and took a road trip to San Diego, I was startled to find you spooning him during a nap in our rental van. So open to showing love for your dog. I'll never forget that sight, and I'd come to see that it was the way you were with him. You loved being with him, next to him, two gentle, patient souls who had found each other.

He was ready to move on, and in this time of grieving for our family I just want you to know how grateful I am that you shared him with me, and how proud I am that you are the father of my child. The patience I have learned from you -- true, old, wide, ancient patience -- I now see that you learned in part from Rosco. You were mirrors for each other in this way.

And he waited, to die. Fifteen years in human time, 105 in dog years. He really liked being with you, part of your family. And he stuck around, even with at least 14 years of seizures, to show Helena what Dog Love is like. I remain convinced it is Love in some ways evolved beyond what humans know.

And as you feel appreciated and seen for the spectacular man and father you are, I also ask that you fully grieve the loss of your sweet boy. He feels it, I promise you that. The grieving is part of the love.

So here is a sweet song, my favorite instrument as you know (piano) and my favorite in part because of how much it helps us humans to feel. I picked a song by a Korean composer because of how much beauty you've shared with me from the Japanese and other Asian cultures. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Oeg32zW3E

Rosco, the dog who "smiled" when he ran. The dog who could have taught the world how to heal with physical touch, simply by his loving presence and soft, willing body.

I love you outside of words and far beyond this lifetime. It feels empty here without our Zubby around, waiting for an affectionate foot or an elbow, or hand...

Love, me

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Village: Our Loss, Our Longing

1/3/2017

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by Jessica Rios
originally published December 2016 in The Natural Parent magazine

When I was in college, I heard about hippies living together on communes. It sounded so wild, so flowery, so free. Midwives, breast milk, raw honey kind of free.

Then my college roommates came along. Our house was nowhere near as clean as my mother had kept ours. Dishes sat stinky in the sink for days. Dust piled up in every corner. Hangovers permeated the air and post-rugby sweat lingered on sofa pillow cushions. Living in a commune with a bunch of pals turned into the last thing I wanted.

Fifteen years later I gave birth to a baby girl at home. Candles were lit in every room. My patient husband and mother were there. Our midwife and her angelic assistants whispered with strength and service as the baby moved lower, down, down.

By then, I’d grown to treat my home like an altar. Home became a space where everything in it was beautiful for my eyes and soothing for my heart, where every single thing either brought me joy to look at or to use, and was well tended to. I didn’t clean once a month for six hours; tending to my space was a practice everywhere I walked. Creating beauty and order was a meditation. Creating home had become a passion — a home that felt capable of holding me in all the ways I’d grown to give and show up in this world.

I liked having my own space, where I could place a turquoise vase of white tulips on any windowsill I chose without having to democratically discuss it with an entire community of cohabitants.

Roaring like a tiger — literally, you know it, mamas — I sat on the birthing stool at the edge of my bed, a volcano about to erupt from my womb, and our daughter emerged. With pneumonia.

We spent the next 10 days and nights in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). Her lungs got oxygen pumped into them to grow. I held her little body for only about an hour every day. Her father and I stared at the vitals monitor, hour after hour, our little pink skinned baby laying in her Isolette with tubes in her nose and taped to her belly. My breastmilk supply was insufficient. And five months later, my long time soul mate, a female red Queensland Heeler dog named Lusa, developed lumps near her ribs and passed away as I held her body and she took her last breath.

I was depressed.

Thirteen months later, the fog of depression lifted. But for all those months my head and heart hung low, bathed by the sorrowful waters of life’s rigor.

Did I need more aerobic exercise? Sure. More grieving, to process the trauma? Sure. Yet there was one word that kept repeating itself, an echo of wisdom from deep in my womb, over and over and over again as the months of depression carried on. One word that captured what a solution would feel like. One word that spoke of the medicine a mother like me so painfully needed in these times.

Village.

I would think, staring at my baby’s perfect face as she slept in my lap, If only I could call a friend to come and make me tea and cry with me. I would wonder, How sweet would it be if we could easily cook dinner with three other families, with no transportation involved… just as a way of life? I yearned for an easier and built-in sort of community, one that seemed so natural, so good for life, so good for mothers.

Village.

What I longed for turned out to be something many other mothers longed for too. We felt a sense of loss, as if our ancestors had something we have somehow since forgotten.

One year later in my classic entrepreneurial leadership style, I formed a group to discuss village living. Where would we form a village? What would it look like? How many families, what ages, and what were all the legalities involved? And what kinds of challenges might we face? Knowing the interpersonal dynamics would likely be the most challenging part, the issue I’d always bring to the table was how we would “be” in relationship. What kinds of agreements and other structures would we create to support our village experiment — without running in opposite directions hating each other after all was said and done?

Sure, our ancestors made it work. Men went out hunting while women cared for the children in the caves and tipis.

Yet times are different now. Fences and property lines were about as common for our ancestors as lawnmowers, especially the reality of every single home on a city block having its very own lawnmower. And tool shed. And kitchen to clean. And its very own need for specific arrangements to be made every time the residents go travelling: pet sitters, plant waterers, mail collectors. Its very own mortgage and sprinkler system and electricity bill to file and pay.

(See how heavy this is feeling? There has got to be a better way.)

Eventually, the "Village group" dissolved, but not because there’s not great longing for Village. We dissolved because life in the San Francisco Bay Area is busy, and I felt pulled to let the Village vision simmer awhile as I focused on other things.

What has come clear since then is this: Village is a healthy, fulfilling way of life that would be optimal for women, children, men and most things in between. It’s also clear that going back to how things were for the hippies of the 1960s and ‘70s isn’t quite what’s wanted for those of us yearning for Village today.

What isn’t clear is how we do it, in the modern world. Not every one of us has a Trust that enables the purchase of acreage to form a community based on Village values. And even when we do, the reality is that it’s still not easy to make it work.

Distilling the issue down to what it looks like — and what values are at play — appears to be the most helpful approach for the 1,000s and 1,000s of families who want to create a more community-oriented “Village” lifestyle.

1) Share food.

Whenever possible, invite friends over for meals. Consider an exchange twice a month with one family; you cook once and they cook once. This creates deeper bonds, makes dinnertime more fun, and spices up the routine that can dull long term relationships.

Or how about a dinner coop with eight families who each cook twice a month, and receive three meals cooked for them every other Sunday?

2) Share childcare.

When families share land, children can run out your door without needing to schedule play dates. When we don’t, trading childcare hours is an option.

We’ve never hired a babysitter — not because we think it’s wrong or bad, but — just because it seems more sensible to ask the people who adore our child to hang out with her when we can’t. Our neighbor a few doors down has become a cherished friend and gets along great with our daughter. We look for ways to share our time and love with her; she spends time with our daughter. We don’t pay her; she loves it! And we all build Village in the process. Isn’t life all about relationships, anyway?

3) Share chores and tools.

Instead of always cleaning your own house alone, why not trade with a fellow mama whose company you cherish? You bring wine to her house once a month and clean for three hours together with Fleetwood Mac blasting on the stereo. She does the same for you, only it’s Lila Downs at your casa.

You could set up a Home and Garden Coop using painted popsicle sticks to show credit for how many hours each family has pitched in to the group. Then when you need your laundry room painted Moroccan Orange, you can cash in some sticks and call in a small crew to drink Maghrebi Mint tea and paint with you.

Maybe your man is great at fixing bikes and your bestie’s man is skilled with knife sharpening. They can trade, eh? Just takes a little coordination. As long as too many beers aren’t involved, the dance should go just great.

4) Share your dreams.

As with any longing, when we get obsessed with it, things don’t go so well. But we can hold onto the dream of living Village, keeping it tucked close to our chest and seeing how life shows us it’s listening. Maybe having shared land or co-housing just isn’t in the cards for us, yet we can ask for “this or something better” as is often said by the enchanting Caroline Casey of Coyote Network News.

We can honor our dream for Village living by tending to it as if it’s a dear friend. Listening to it, talking about it, paying attention to it.

By living the values and feelings associated with Village life — and by making our lives look more like the way Village speaks to us through our child-honoring wombs — we can satisfy a deep, deep longing that cannot be denied. As with anything that makes life truly rich, the desire to live a Village life is well worth exploring.

P.S. There is nowhere I would be that's worthy of being, without the loving power and care of my very dear girlfriends. I'm dosing up with joy here, by posting a 'gallery' grid of photos taken with lady loves over the last 10 years or so.

Deepest ode, girlfriends. You are my Village!

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Screenagers, the Movie: Calling Us Out On Screen Life

9/11/2016

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Tricky, tricky, tricky. Life keeps doing its thing, keeping us on our toes.

Twenty-three years ago I stopped watching TV. For me, life outside the screen is just more interesting.

I don’t experience FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I still stay tuned to enough news stories. I still live in the modern world, lacking nothing that TV offers. As a matter of fact, I have seen my quality of life largely enhanced by this choice.

Yet clever ol’ life has outsmarted me once again, depositing the next big challenge right in the palm of my hand. A computer phone — commonly called a smartphone — and it’s packed with sweet social media temptation. Two decades after I’d stopped finding any allure behind the screen, now I can blast my love-note-rockets across the planet instantly, to family and friends 200 or even 5,328 miles away. What’s fabulous about that? My husband’s family lives in Sweden, and it is really nice to so easily share photos of our daughter with them.

From not-even-a-little-bit-tempting, to suddenly delicious. Oh, boy.

Photo Credit: Steven Gregory | screenagersmovie.com

We’ve all got ways our life is made more meaningful and fun with social media. Entirely shutting ourselves out of the joys of modern technology is neither reasonable nor very productive. Years ago when I tried to go back to a call/text-only phone, it clogged my ability to do many things I enjoy. That wasn’t the answer for me. And it’s not the answer I seek for the problem we face as a society: a mass addiction that we rarely discuss and barely even see.

Tricky, tricky, tricky. Not cut and dry. Not black and white. And not One Size Fits all.

Enter, Screenagers the movie.

Produced by a concerned mother who’s a Stanford trained MD, the movie explores screen life among teenagers, children and families. Impacts on the brain of adolescents, tendencies of boys to play violent video games while girls take selfies and aim to look “good,” the importance of role modeling by parents and how families can benefit from the use of structures like agreements around smartphone use.

The film features Sherry Turkle, Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, who has rigorously researched and explored the use and impact of screens in our time.

As I watched the film, it was like I’d walked thirsty for miles and finally reached water. Bothered for many years by our societal lack of mindfulness around screen time, I have initiated some conversation around it and taken my own strides toward a more conscientious relationship with the screen. When we’re bothered, we need to take personal responsibility first and foremost. If I’m picking up the phone-computer or laptop-computer every time I sit down to relax, what does that tell my daughter? Children mimic what we do, and I don’t want her to treat the computer like a best friend.

Isn’t this what we do? As with a best friend or lover or newborn baby, we tend to our computer-phones with utmost devotion.

Like keys, wallets and lip gloss, we know where our computer-phone is at all times. It buzzes or beeps and we tend to it within seconds. Hundreds of times a day, we interact with it. It sleeps next to us and sits on our dining table top like a precious jewel. Last week, as I sat at my favorite cafe planning my week, I noticed a screen at every table surrounding mine — and I took these photos. Surely they’re not unfamiliar to anyone reading this.

Perspectives on screen use vary widely. With this issue as with life itself, we are best off when we discover and honor our own values, allow others to do the same, and don’t take it personally when people don’t feel the way we do.

Some parents say computers are “the future” and want their kids using them as much as possible to keep up with technology. Some parents — consciously or unconsciously, the whole range exists — use computers as babysitters, either for an hour a day or even 6 hours a day. Some families don’t allow screen time at all in the household, because they feel the society will provide enough of that and they want to be sure their children are sufficiently exposed to things like outdoor play in nature, music and human interpersonal connection. As shown in the Screenagers film, some parents have established boundaries and practices like Tech Free Tuesdays where dinnertime is screen-free and conversation centers around sharing with each other about screen habits, what’s working and what’s not working, concerns and joys. That’s just a sampling of how screen-life looks in families. You might have a situation that’s totally different from any of these.

What works for you? Have you found a healthy balance for your family or household, one that honors the desires and freedom associated with computer use and also has a solid tone of mindfulness around use, risks and benefits?

Striking a balance around device-use requires self-awareness, mindfulness, and a desire to have your impact in the world be more intended, than unintended. This doesn't just happen. We have to step in and step up.

Tricky.

For our family, with two parents who have strong preferences in most areas of life and one three year old daughter, it’s absolutely a work in progress.

Mama Bear Rio will now give myself permission to share passionately about my perspectives on the issue, for the sake of my own clarity and expression, and for any others who find it helpful as you consider yours.

From my maternal instinct and personal sense of human responsibility, I approach screen-time with the eye of a skeptic. I smell with my primal mind the addictive nature of screen-time and I’m on to it; it will not have power over me. If I am going to depend on something so much, and let it be close to me so often, then I’ve got to have a really clean, beneficial relationship with this thing.

We are, after all, engaged in an intimate relationship with our phones — are we not?

Boundaries and agreements are an essential part of healthy intimacy.

My phone doesn’t sleep next to me; it sleeps on the kitchen counter.

I do not respond to texts or calls right away unless I want to in that moment.

We do not bring our phones to the dining table; that’s a sacred place for gratitude and presence, above all things.

Once the sun goes down, the screen stays off.

I trust myself and my ‘inner meter’ of awareness, to tell me if any given day — or road trip, or week, or morning — has had too much screen time and not enough play, music, reading, eye contact... or just being.

When I’m with my daughter, unless I’m engaged in something timely or on a roll with writing, or otherwise genuinely needing to tend to whatever I’m doing on the screen, she is the priority. When she needs something, the screen waits. There will be no hazing and dazing out in La La Screen Land when my greatest spiritual teacher is in my company.

How does this work? I simply try to power-out my screen use when she’s not around, taking care of things in a more productive and condensed fashion. Her presence holds the bar high for me in this area, and I’m the last person who’ll deny her invitation to step up my game. Every few days she might glimpse something on my screen, like a Facebook photo or a music video, and that’s fine.

For us this isn’t about extremism. It’s about finding a reasonable, authentic balance for our family.

And these aren’t hard rules I am chained to. They are principles that guide what feels like a healthy relationship, between myself and the computer screen, for the sake of our family.

Pete Kirchmer

In his February 2015 post The Device Diet, Mindfulness Based Health Founder Pete Kirchmer writes, “Five years ago I’d never had a client request coaching around social media compulsion and device addiction. This is a phenomenon that has been around for awhile but is more recently emerging as a relevant topic for all of my clients, despite demographic or the primary coaching goal they came with. It seems we are all united by this common distraction and our desire to gain control over it.”

Anytime I contemplate the relationship we have with our screens, our devices, at first it all seems a bit daunting. Then I remember how useful it is for us humans to face challenges — spiritual, physical, emotional, mental — so that we can practice all the great things worth practicing.

Presence is one of these great things.

Mindfulness has become a very popular subject in recent years and I can’t think of a better challenge to set the bar high, than the allure of these handy little pocket-computers, with all their little charming emoticons and customizable alert sounds, the ability to take and share photos and videos in a split second… It’s all pretty snazzy.

Yet we’re made for these times. The huge success of the movie Screenagers gives me hope that we may be facing quite a jewel of a challenge, in actuality — one that’ll “call out” humanity in a compelling enough way to bring us far-more-fully into the present moment. The "precious present," as it has been called. The place where mindfulness leads.

For now, it’s dark outside and I need to shut down this screen.

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The Big Thing No One Told Me about Becoming a Mom

7/17/2016

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I heard it was the best thing ever. The biggest love I’d ever feel. The most challenging thing I’d ever do. “It’s Spirituality 101,” one of my closest friends told me.

All these things are true.

Being a mom is at least as wonderful, challenging and spiritually enriching as anything I’ve experienced.

I also heard it was hard work. Somehow, I don’t see it that way. Although it takes the highest degree of devotion I’ve ever shown, it just isn’t hard work. It’s natural. It’s primal. It’s constant. But it isn’t hard work. It’s literally the greatest honor of my life.

What no one told me was that when I became a mom, I would go from having a considerable amount of time just for me, to giving away about 95% of it for my daughter. Dramatic difference. More dramatic than I could begin to articulate.

I don't just mean changing a diaper. I don't just mean holding them when they cry, when you've already been breastfeeding and doing laundry all morning while trying to remember to brush your own teeth, and could really use a nap. And I don't mean "eating Bon Bons all day" which is exactly what I heard from an acquaintance who is a mother herself, referring to what it's like to stay home with a child. Clearly her family's nutritional preferences are different from ours, and she's never worked full-time for an extended period of time, caring for her child at home. Either that or she has, and they eat ice cream all day, and that's easy for her. Hey, maybe I'm missing something.

Let's not compartmentalize this.

Every mother I've ever spoken with who has been at home all day, most days, caring for her child, says it is much easier to go to work. To a job. These are moms who are comparing the work of caring for a child at home full-time, with the work of going to a job full-time. One mom took it further and said going to work is like a vacation. You get to be in your car by yourself, with no one interrupting you, no one needing you with all they've got. It's just you in the car. Sure there are mothers who've worked full time at home -- no, not stayed at home but worked at home caring for their child more than full-time, double-full time --who say their job outside the home is more difficult. Some who would really rather be home with their child than at a job. Yet what's magnetized to me, probably because of simple physics (like attracts like), are dozens of mothers who find the full-time work of caring for children tougher than a full time job.

Really caring for a child -- at home, full time -- is the most undervalued work of our time.

To fully take care of a child full time, the mother (or father, if/when he is the primary caretaker) must hold the ENORMOUS space of caring, as completely as possible, for the child's physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. When this is your work not just during typical working hours (9-5), but from the moment they wake up and during and after dinner until they do go to sleep, and additionally while they're asleep because you're primally wired to hear their every move... it's a lot.

Is it easy to become imbalanced and not take enough breaks? Yes.

Do all mothers deserve far more appreciation than we receive? YES.

Is it up to us to make this happen -- to make the world more reverent of women, mothers, children, and life itself? Yes.

I will not endeavor to describe, in this blog post, all that full-time mothering in the home has entailed in my own mothering experience. But I will say it is HUGE, bordering on indescribable, and far beyond the cultural awareness and capacity. Its almost-indescribability is one of the reasons it's undervalued. Humans have a hard time valuing what we can't understand or measure.

Can mothering be taxing? I am a case in point. Without great self care: VERY.

Right now as I write, I have a migraine. It’s my 4th migraine and they’ve all happened in one year. Hormones + life pressure + interrupted sleep + less than great physical self care = OUCH. Pain in the head. Pressure speaking through my body saying, “STOP, Jessica. Stop.”

And then I hear the words, in the form of a book title, because that’s how it often goes for me as a writer: A Revolution in Self Care.

I’m writing this piece for women who are pregnant with their first child, new moms, other moms, and myself. Because: self care. Writing is therapy for me. And, as in the spirit of community acupuncture, and in the words of my dear friend Olivia who owns Chico Community Acupuncture, I believe in “taking healing out of isolation.”

If you’re pregnant or just gave birth to new life, hear this: You are a hero. You gave your body over for another life to grow in it and from it. You did or are about to do the greatest thing a human body can do: let new life emerge from your own body.

It is the most natural and wild thing we can do. We were made for this. And it is heroic, all at the same time.

Dear Mamas,

There will never be a moment when it isn’t the truth that you are the most important thing in your world.

If you’re like me, you will feel the most indescribable primal pull to do everything and anything for your baby. And to be with them almost all the time.

Follow that instinct. Surrender to ask for help in order to do it. Give nothing less than your all. (And no one else knows what your “all” is; that’s for YOU to know and honor.)

Babies are the greatest miracle. Life emerging through another life. We cannot comprehend this fully with our brains; we must engage our hearts and our primal, instinctual selves to fully appreciate it.

Your baby is a genius.

No joke. Babies are energetic geniuses and life IS energy. So do it. Give that baby your all. In all the world, there’s no greater Return on Investment (ROI).

And, in the slivers of moments when you feel like you could really use some sleep and your husband, or your best friend, or your mom or your kind neighbor, is within reach -- reach for them. Let their loving arms make a place for your precious baby while you: SLEEP. Don’t rob an opportunity from someone else who’s dear to you, to cherish the divine skin and breath of your precious child. Don’t rob them, either, of a change to care for and love you. YOU know how good it feels to care for others, right? It’s universal.

If you are suffering with physical, spiritual, emotional or mental challenges, it is a disservice to everyone around you, and clearly to yourself, to wait a single second before taking action to take care of yourself. You can only give as much as you’ve got. If your tank is full, you can give to others superwoman-style. If your tank needs fuel, pump it up hot mama.

Feeling underappreciated? Get over yourself and this culture’s adolescent and perverse perspective around self-care -- especially for women -- and ASK FOR IT. Ask five of your dearests, friends or family, to tell you, in an email or text or in person, what they admire about you. Have them help you fill your cup. This is Village. We are meant to take care of each other, not to starve ourselves when we need something as essential as feeling valued. Get over the “this means I’m weak and insecure” baloney. It means you’re BREATHING.

You are infinitely important. Your baby is best off when you remember this.

And for me?

Less: screen time, and none after dark. A break from Facebook for the rest of the summer, or at least a few weeks. Less life pressure. Less responding to texts instantly.

More: trust that it’s all working out. More acupuncture, massage, exercise, sleep. More time away for myself, now that my daughter is 3 years and 4 months old, and past the most foundational “bubble of innocence” phase that I so fiercely protected.

Yeah, rocket science. Yet somehow, taking care of ourselves sometimes seems like the hardest thing to do. One small step at a time, mamas. We do this together.

Love,
Jessica

{Photos L-R: treated myself to 'medicure' (manicure pedicure ;) during my last migraine (see it in the eyes?)... with Chinese herbs from acupuncturist for migraine... and freshly showered, still with migraine but starting to find a way to laugh through it, on my first 2-nights-away solo trip since my daughter was born...}

P.S. If this post upset you, if you felt offended or insulted or unseen or anything like that, you're not alone. One of my dear friends who's a wonderful hard working mother wrote me a message that helped illuminate how I can write about this topic, from a more loving perspective that honors all mothers. I am grateful for my courageous friends who voice themselves when what I say upsets them. It is a gift I'd not trade for anything (and most of them so far have kept me around). ;D

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Forward>>

Dear Family Holiday Letter: More Presence, Less Presents

Dear Family,

Heartbreak and Humility: The Shedding of Innocence of the Inner Child

(also published in Holistic Parenting Magazine, spring 2017)

To Be Hardened or To Stay Soft

What is Reality, Really?

Creating from Sweetness and Ferocity

Stepping Up to the High Bar

Here Comes the Mirror

Tools, Teaching and Learning

The Big Huge Glaring T Word

Chorus of Compassion: Pain as Messenger

That was when it became clear this was no time to pretend I was independent. We need each other.

No Love Like Dog Love... Farewell Rosco Pup

Village: Our Loss, Our Longing

Screenagers, the Movie: Calling Us Out On Screen Life

We are, after all, engaged in an intimate relationship with our phones — are we not?

The Big Thing No One Told Me about Becoming a Mom

What no one told me was that when I became a mom, I would go from having a considerable amount of time just for me, to giving away about 95% of it for my daughter. Dramatic difference. More dramatic than I could begin to articulate.

Really caring for a child -- at home, full time -- is the most undervalued work of our time.

Author

Categories

Archives

Dear Family Holiday Letter: More Presence, Less Presents

Dear Family,

Heartbreak and Humility: The Shedding of Innocence of the Inner Child

(also published in Holistic Parenting Magazine, spring 2017)​

To Be Hardened or To Stay Soft

​What is Reality, Really?

Creating from Sweetness and Ferocity

Stepping Up to the High Bar​

Here Comes the Mirror

Tools, Teaching and Learning

The Big Huge Glaring T Word

Chorus of Compassion: Pain as Messenger

That was when it became clear this was no time to pretend I was independent. We need each other.

No Love Like Dog Love... Farewell Rosco Pup

Village: Our Loss, Our Longing

Screenagers, the Movie: Calling Us Out On Screen Life

We are, after all, engaged in an intimate relationship with our phones — are we not?

﻿The Big Thing No One Told Me about Becoming a Mom

What no one told me was that when I became a mom, I would go from having a considerable amount of time just for me, to giving away about 95% of it for my daughter. Dramatic difference. More dramatic than I could begin to articulate.

Really caring for a child -- at home, full time -- is the most undervalued work of our time.

Author

Categories

Archives

(also published in Holistic Parenting Magazine, spring 2017)

What is Reality, Really?

Stepping Up to the High Bar

The Big Thing No One Told Me about Becoming a Mom