Must we talk about that magazine cover again?

Last week I decided that I was NOT going to write about the Times Magazine cover.  You know the one, with the 4 year old kid in camo pants standing on a chair to breastfeed.  The reason I wasn’t going to write about it was because neither did the magazine.  The Time article is about Dr.Sears and attachment parenting of which extended breastfeeding can be a part of.  So why give more virtual ink to a cover (im)purely created to expose a breast and sell magazines, stir up controversy and sell magazines, use misdirection and sell magazines?   After all,  I thought that the Huff post did an excellent job critiquing the cover:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/no-i-am-not-mom-enough_b_1507550.html  But I wouldn’t have started a blog if I was content to let other people do all the talking and writing, albeit more eloquently that I.

I’ll say upfront that my initial reaction was that it was pretty awesome to have a breastfeeding mama on the cover of any non-parenting magazine.  And I have no personal objections to the appearance of the mama on the cover.  Though I know some pretty stunning mama’s and I’m sure any one of us are just as cover worthy!

My issue with the cover wasn’t of the photograph but the blaring, hugely inaccurate and downright rude headlining question “Are you mom enough?” 

To which my response is: “Are you new?!?!”  Seriously, how “new” do you have to be to dare to ask that question of any mama? 

Simply  getting out of bed every morning to provide your child with everything – that’s EVERYTHING-he or she needs to thrive physically, emotionally, and socially in this world  is being “Mom enough”  All of this, ALL OF THIS while braving the intrusions of those who do not have you and your child’s best interests, when they voice their opinion on breastfeeding is being “Mom enough”.  Especially if you manage to hold back and not punch that stranger in the face for feeling like you needed yet another unsolicited opinion.  

Did I breastfeed my girls until past the age of two?  Absolutely.  Was it completely my choice or did my toddlers bully me into it?  Absolutely.  Do I think that makes me more of a mama than my mama friends who didn’t breastfeed at all?  Not on your life.  Do I think that makes me less of a mom than my mama friends who breastfed their babies longer?  Not on your life.

Whether you adhere to attachment parenting or not.  Whether you believe it takes a village to raise a child or not.  Whether you have an ever supporting partner like I do or not.  Breastfeeding is a very personal choice because its a personal commitment that is made easier by "public" support regardless or where you land on the decision. But the bigger personal commitment is the one to do everything you can to make sure your baby knows how much you love them from the time they are born and beyond.  Being “mom enough” doesn’t mean letting your child climb up on a chair to breastfeed.  It means being able to crouch down and give them a hug whenever they – or you- need it.

Mama's Day

The always provocative Julie Cole over on the Mablehood asked “What don’t you want or Mother’s Day this year?”  And I can say quite honestly:

I don’t want Mark to cook lunch or dinner for me.  Mark is an expert weekend brunch maker.   But any other meal, and he lives up to my moniker for him “The half-naked, fully angry chef”.  Enough said really.  I like to cook.  In fact I love to cook.  So if I could get a free pass to Whole Foods and time to cook a lovely meal for all of us, that would pretty much be perfection.  I do, however, have a baby who likes to nurse constantly, and a pool in the backyard I’ve been begging Mark to open.  So, raw oysters on the half-shell with freezer cold vodka on Saturday night will more than suffice as a gift from Mark.  And many, many, hugs, smiles, and kisses from my girls on Sunday with whatever they want to make me for breakfast would be fabulous.  (And I’m not presuming.  I heard my girls whispering about making me breakfast.)

I don’t want a spa day for two reasons.  One, that much time alone makes me antsy, I get anxious about my girls, and I start to think of the other things I could be doing.  And two, the spa treatments I need are not relaxing nor soothing.  They involve ripping hair off my body and trying to find a soft layer of skin on the bottom of my feet.  Ugh.

I don’t want jewellery for Mother’s Day because I think it’s just odd for my partner to thank me for having babies I wanted to have and worse yet for my girls to think they need to “pay” me with expensive gifts for the pleasure of being their mama. 

Which segues perfectly into what I wanted to write about. 

In the past, I’ve noticed that Mother’s Day seems to be a day to give mom a break from the kids; and Father’s Day is all about getting Dad to spend more time with the kids. This message seems to be very loudly broadcast this year by women.  Maybe it’s because I’m more tuned in to social networks now then ever, but there seems to be a plethora of women writing about Mother’s Day and how they both want that extra time to sleep-in but even an hour is fine; the ability to go to the bathroom uninterrupted or at least with the door closed; appreciation/acknowledgement from their partner; and time to themselves. 

I'm not a martyr, not by a long shot, and I'd love a little bit of all of those things, but not this Sunday.   Because I'd miss my girls and Mark.  After all, if it wasn’t for the cooperative –and fun-participation of Mark and the very presence of my three girls, I wouldn’t be a Mama.  So why would I want to celebrate Mother’s Day without them?  R, L, and baby C are...well, they are awesome! Baby C’s gummy silent laugh; little L’s devilish grin; and R’s sweet smile are the things that get me out of bed in the morning, because they energize me.  Sure, I want to bury my head under the pillow when it’s a Saturday and only 6:30am.  But I spent 10 months, three separate times, eagerly waiting to meet my girls, taking the best care of myself ever, and now devoting all of that time and energy into taking care of them.  And I lose a lot of sleep regretting not being more patient or a better mama in general with my lovely girls..So the idea of not getting to spend Mother’s Day with them beaming smiles at me and showering me with drawings and handmade trinkets (L and I spent yesterday morning making paper flowers for her to give me so that she wouldn’t feel one-up’d by her big sister), makes me more sad that I can say.  They want to make me breakfast.  They want to hold my hand and say my name every 90 seconds to tell me something only the six and under crowd would feel compelled to tell you immediately!  And I want to be there for it.  Too many children don't have mamas and too many mamas don't have children they can spend any Sunday with.  I am truly blessed to have children, and without them not only would I not have anything to celebrate this coming Sunday; my life would be less of a celebration .

So for Mother’s Day this year, I want to be a better Mama – to R, L and baby C.  I want to have more patience and less frustration.  I want to continue to listen to their made up stories and songs.  To continue to play with them and cook for them and take them for walks.  I want to appreciate every single hug and kiss and smile.  My girls are the light of my life and I want them to know it.

Oh, and for the record, Mark can feel free to purchase jewellery for me at any other time.  Though preferably not hand it to me carelessly and say “It was really cheap as the store was closing.”  Which is how it went the last time he bought me a necklace. Seriously.

A Mama’s Cooking Challenge

Right now, I’m in the process of reading Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain.  In it, he has a chapter  where he postulates that every kid should be taught basic cooking skills and he’s not talking KD or hotdogs.  Rather, there is a list of kitchen skills he feels everyone should be able to do, most of which you should be able to accomplish by the time you are 18 and headed out of the nest:  chop an onion and generally possess basic knife skills including how to sharpen a knife; grill a steak properly; cook a roast to perfect temperature without a thermometer; roast a chicken perfectly; survey, buy, and prepare in season vegetables (having successfully distinguished raw from ripe from rotten); make the perfect omelette; filet a fish; cook a lobster or a pot of mussels; make a pot of rice.

I couldn’t do any of these things by the time I was 18.  I spent a lot of time in my parents’ kitchen, doing homework, or hanging out with my dad while he ate dinner.  But I didn’t do more than bake cookies or banana bread until I was 18 and then was only to make variations on pasta primavera when my mother wasn’t home.  My mother didn’t believe in shopping for a particular meal.  She only had two or three cookbooks that were 20 years old before I was 20.  You had to cook what was in the house and there was an overlying threat of “finishing it all” because even if it was a failure or tasted amazing you’d “wasted” food by cooking something different. But my mother didn’t enjoy cooking, she despised grocery shopping, and food was functional.

As a mama, my goal is to guarantee that my girls can do all of the skills Bourdain lists and hopefully more, enthusiastically.  I’m fairly certain they will enjoy cooking for more than a means of survival.  Already, one or both of R and L will with regularity ask if they can help me in the kitchen – and not just when I’m making chocolate cake.  They peel garlic, shred herbs, dip thin slices of aubergine into cornstarch/flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs.  They mix masa into tortilla dough and ground meat into hamburger patties.  They can, without any prompting pull out all of the ingredients for a basic cake. From the age of two, R would flip through my cookbooks, and list off ingredients she could see in a photo.  I would tell her what we had, and she would then tell me what we could make from it.  L’s approach is to tell me we need to go grocery shopping to buy the items she needs to make whatever food she happens to be craving.  Grocery shopping is a family field trip and can only be improved by the opening of the farmers markets in the spring.  R has been known to fake being sick on Friday mornings only to magically recover in time to go buy lunch at the local farmers market.  She’s in kindergarten so I let it slide.  Mark suggests that given my love of food, I’d let it slide anyway.

When  I mentioned the list to my girls, they asked me to read it to them and wanted to know what they could start practicing. So I figure we are already half-way there.  Frankly, I can’t wait until they are old enough to pass on some of the more menial prep cook tasks to!  For now, they are spending hours pouring over the cooking class schedule from Loblaws and Whole Foods.  Personally, I’m thinking I need to just conduct these classes out of my own kitchen for some extra cash.  What do you think?  Mini goddess cooking classes, my place, this summer?