Autism Answer: Life Lessons and Leftovers

 

My boys (circa a lot of years ago)

My four boys are now men. 

 

I care so much about them.

 

When they were small every single choice I consciously made worked its way through the "how do I think this will affect them" filter. 

 

Back then it was intense. I did not see myself as separate from them. Instead, we were a unit. A unit of individuals with the right and necessity of discovering and becoming a healthy version of our natural selves. But, still - a unit. 

 

When my sons were small, I did not feel like we were poor. We had too much support, really, to feel poor. My mom and my sister (who were not wealthy) didn't hesitate to offer us vacations, homes, vehicles, gas money, dance classes, foods with fancy names, trips to museums and science centers. So we didn't feel poor, exactly. But I did not often make money and my husband at the time worked hard but made little.

 

Groceries were a weekly worry. Grocery store trips were emotionally and financially draining. I cared so much about feeding the hunger in our home nutritiously, while not losing site of the value in frivolity and fun. The ideas, the items, the foods: I wanted to offer nutrition, and example the vigor and joy of it. 

 

I didn't do too bad. I cared a lot, and that came through. 

 

But I also missed a few things, made missteps and mistakes, and that came through too. 

 

One of the things that comes to mind in this moment: 

 

All four of my sons remember me in their youth with slightly different perspectives. But one thing that is consistent in their memories is the habit I had of often giving them the food and waiting happily for leftovers before I would eat. Not at every meal, not every day, but when the food was either a treat or limited, this was my happy habit. I wasn't dramatic about it. It wasn't a sacrifice or anything, I tried to be sure they recognized that I was not growing and they were. That I was in less need than them. And that I was not actually hungry for anything more than seeing my children's bellies and bodies filled. 

 

As men, my sons now often bring up this version of me while insisting on seeing me eat. My oldest son is following a passion for feeding people and the satisfaction he expresses while watching me enjoy his food is powerful. 

 

Confession: I am warmed by a sense of gratification when any of my sons comments on my habit of eating mostly leftovers when they were little. 

 

I recognize, though, the possible pitfalls of this sort of pride. 

 

I recognize them, because I am a little bit guilty of them. 

 

For one thing, I am a little bit guilty of feeling GOOD about sacrificing my own meals in order to feed them. A little bit of proof that I CARED so much. Now, I did care and I did remember to put the focus on their growing bodies and needs, but I know that the deeper belief (that I was being a good mom and showing love by denying myself the treats) would have revealed itself somewhere. That in some quieter way I was also telling them that sacrificing my own needs was a sign of love. 

 

Another pitfall: I am a little bit guilty of feeling GOOD about not eating when I was hungry because it might finally make me THIN. Oh, I cared too much about teaching my sons to value women of every shape and size to say it. I asked them to applaud women who had passion and kindness and to know that meant they would likely have figures and curves and soft rolls as nature desires. Because of this I never would have said, to them or to myself, that I was excited at the idea that maybe sacrificing food for the sake of my children might have the side effect of making me thin. And thin, though not necessarily healthy, can borrow her sister's clothes without fear of embarrassing the people around her. Hence thin, particularly if you are a woman, is desirable. I tried exceptionally hard not to teach this, but I felt it. So, it likely surfaced. 

 

Yet another guilty pitfall of this little habit I had is how proud I was of being able to find joy in being too broke to feed myself. In my attempt to show them I was happy, I was comfortable not eating, they were the ones growing and I was not (nor did I want to grow) so no big deal, I consistently gave the impression that being broke was totally cool. That it might be a sign we were better than the moms who ate alongside their children for every meal. We were amazing at having a good attitude while being broke, which meant we were learning a skill the richer folks were not learning. Yikes! This is not a lesson I wanted to teach, but I admit to being a little bit guilty of THINKING it. Of maybe even BELIEVING it. 

 

So, from now on when my sons comment of this habit I had, and my inevitable feeling of a pride-like pleasure creeps in, I will focus on the part that I do not mind feeling gratitude for. The part where my sons, all four of them, saw me. Saw me care about them, saw me be with them, saw me try to nourish them. 

 

We were one unit. 

 

One unit made of of individuals. 

 

We still are. 

 

They are grown men and I still make choices with them at the helm. But I am aware, and satisfied with, the truth that my choices affect them less now. Appropriately so. 

 

Moving forward into new years I still think about what my choices might mean for them. But now those movements are more about me and my soul mate, and what we hope to build for a future that is consistently him and me, while inviting our children and grandchildren. 

 

Inviting them to visit but, more importantly, inviting them to see in my choices something healthy.

 

Interestingly, this includes me eating meals alongside my loved ones, and also eating - my favorite food - leftovers! 

 

It turns out that my distaste for waste has instilled in me a love of leftovers! 

 

Hence, when I am around my grandchildren, my nieces, my sons and my step-daughter, I love that everyone knows to share with me the leftovers. It is, funnily enough, often enough to sustain me.

 

I like to think my love of leftovers is finally on solid ground. Not a sacrifice, or secret desire to be thin, or a nod to the perks of poverty, but a good ol' distaste for waste. 

 

Wait, my distaste for waste grew naturally out of me noticing a dangerous lack of caring about waste in the society that surrounds me. 

 

Hence, I suspect it is not without pitfalls. 

 

You know what? That's an issue for another year! 

 

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to nibble on this plate of leftover cheeses and crackers. Wouldn't want to allow for more waste! 

 

Happy New Year everyone!

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!!!!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook) 

 

RANDOM: In the photo above my sons are eating apples. I am certain, I ate the cores. 

Book Review: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will To Survive by Stephanie Land

 

Book: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, And A Mother's Will To Survive

Genre: Memoir

Author: Stephanie Land

Pages:270 

Reviewed by : Me! (Tsara)

 

me reading the book my daughter-in-law lent me

She was using birth control but it didn’t work.

When Stephanie Land discovers she is pregnant not long after her 28^th birthday, she finds herself in an all too familiar place. One where she has to make choices that will drastically decide the direction of her life. Hers, and if she chooses, her child’s.

Some of the choices she makes are thus: have the child, tell the father, become a mother.

Putting her plans to attend a writing program in Missoula, Montana – a place that calls to her like home - on hold, she tries to build a family in a trailer with her increasingly abusive boyfriend. When his abusiveness becomes clear, when he punches a hole in the plexiglass window on the door, meaning she can call the police with a type of proof, something to point at and say, “See that? He did that to us,” she does. She leaves him and begins her time as a single mother.

I admit to being impressed that she knows it is right to walk away. I have not always been so aware. Others, however, might have been unimpressed with how long it takes to leave. Others, still, would judge her for leaving at all at so “little” abuse. The point is relevant to this book where a recurring element is how easily we judge each other and ourselves.

Stephanie does not have much support from her family. Her mother is inaccessible, living in Europe and not interested in making changes, and her father – living with his second wife and their children - is unwilling to be inconvenienced for too long by his oldest daughter and his granddaughter.

So, Stephanie works. She works at finding work - landscaping and as a maid - she works at getting assistance for day care, food, housing, utility payments. She works at bartering her way to a better life for her daughter, offering to clean toilets and houses in order to get sparkly dresses, healthier housing, and safer day care. She works at stifling the shame she feels for being a single mom, for being poor, for not being better at doing better. She works at trying to keep her daughter safe from black mold and an abusive father. 

Everything she does is motivated by motherhood.

The struggles of getting assistance from the system, while working your butt off for very little pay as a landscaper or maid - tidying up for others - is portrayed so well in this memoir. So clearly and balanced. She isn’t overly bitter, she isn’t overly appreciative, she isn’t overly anything really. She simply invites us to join her in a life of hard work, poverty, navigation of grants and services, parental fears and primal needs, impossible choices and urgent decisions. By bringing us with her we are inclined to feel bitterness, helplessness, and, on occasion, appreciation, but only because they are appropriate.

Being a single parent while having to share every other weekend with an abusive one is an impossible sort of exhaustion. Watching your little love deal with tantrums related to a life hard to understand, feelings bigger than their bodies, homes with hidden health dangers, foods that are minimally healthy, and consistent illnesses due to it all. It depletes your physical, emotional, and financial health; often keeping you from the gift of dreaming which can, itself, cost too much emotionally.

But Stephanie describes well the moments that re-energize and reinvigorate parents; the moments with your child(ren) that infect every ounce of your body and vision with a love that is special largely because of the urgent responsibilities.

I have known a variety of single parents. I have been one myself. My mom, though, is the only one I know who had a similar lack of support from any family.

And though my mom found different ways to solve the same challenges Stephanie faced, she faced the same sort of discrimination regarding her creative solutions for feeding and housing all eight of us kids, as well as simply for being a single mom. 

An Aside: Stephanie Land navigated poverty and single parenting in the United States, my mom did it in both Canada and the United States. 

For so many of the reasons Stephanie shares in her book about the paperwork, the constant proving of your poverty, the all-day waiting for meetings that might end in merely more requests for gathering paperwork, all while also working and trying to get better work in order to do better while finding yourself losing necessary benefits when finally doing a little bit better, never able to get even a little bit ahead in order to become able to be properly ahead, for so many of these reasons my mom avoided the help of systems. This meant trying to find (and invent) other creative means of making enough money. (My mom painted houses, joined a bartering group, did comedy shows that incorporated us kids at fairs and similar events, performed as characters at birthday parties, and a variety of other interesting work that could either bring us along or have us older girls babysit the younger boys.) She also did do the paperwork for a few government and nonprofit organizations. She got help from a shelter for abused women, various disability groups, food banks, kind people she met with a desire to do good and some disposable income, and one wonderful Christmas a truckload of gifts from Canadian Tire. 

The point is, I recognized the exhaustion and hard work of trying to raise a child, or children, on your own while consistently being bombarded by the extra layers of unnoticed obstacles; the nasty looks and cruel comments at grocery store counters when using stamps or WIC coupons, the inability to host proper play-dates or bring foods to school functions, the inability to seek medical care for yourself when you make just a little too much to qualify and working through the pain and illness, the judgements of everyone when your child has a public outburst, the constant worry that you are doing everything wrong while working so hard at getting it right.

Something every reader can take away from this true story of one woman’s hard work, low pay, and love for her child, is the ways our judgements hinder and hurt us. The ways they are most often wrong.

She was using birth control but it didn’t work. She had been responsible. She had taken the steps required. Done the “right thing” for a young girl not planning for a family. She had been careful, responsible.

And throughout the entire story she shares with us readers, she remains impressively so.

Maid is an excellent read. For moms, for social workers, for people wondering about abuse, for people who want to better understand poverty – their own, or that of others.

Maid brings us into a variety of homes to tidy up while encouraging us to take notice, to wonder and imagine other lives, without being overly critical of the mess. 

 __________________

 

Maid by Stephanie Land, sitting beside a cloth and fairy wings

NOTE: My daughter-in-law recommended this book to me. Not only recommended, lended! She has mentioned several times in conversation that she adores this book and so much about it; that she wants someone to talk with about it. What I do not yet know is specifically what she loved or why. She is the young mother of two lovely little girls. She and her husband (my fantastic son!) are in that place financially where every dollar they make must be carefully allotted for and if they make a little more they lose a little of the medical financial help they could qualify for. They love their little family fiercely and will do anything to keep it healthy, strong, and happy. So it is easy to imagine pretty much every element in this book is meaningful, helpful, relatable, understandable, inspirational to her. But rather than merely imagine, I think I'll call her. We now both have someone to talk with about this book. :D