Losing the First Tooth

Samuel got his first loose tooth last night. It is wiggly and it hurts a bit and Samuel is thrilled and I am sad. OK, I know it is ridiculous. The timing is actually on the late end to lose his first tooth --he will be seven next month. He has a couple of friends who lost their first tooth at age four and many at age five and six so it is about time (in his mind anyway)!

Nevertheless, I feel like the last vestige of Samuel's babyhood is going. It really seems like he has changed more in the last year (age 6 to 7) than any other single year since infancy. In fact, in many ways, he was remarkably stable in his personality, traits, play and interests between about age three and six. Now he has left those things behind. No more pretend games, no more playmobil, no more fantasy, little tolerance for his younger sister, a rigidity about gender when before there was a fluidity....

Of course he has gained some things as well. He has new interests: legos, sports, hexbugs, his friends, the violin/piano, technology. He can read (and at least he reads to his sister!)! He is more mature both emotionally and cognitively. Where there was once a sweet soft babyness in his face and body, he is now all muscles, angles and lean. Generally, he has been a pretty easy reasonable child, but he has grown mostly easier and more reasonable or at least better at avoiding getting caught in mischief.

A few things remain the same. I still see Samuel (empathic, verbal, thoughtful, curious, funny) when I look at him. But he is growing away from me in leaps and bounds. I am a welcome respite at the end of the day, but during daylight hours, his friends are mostly more important to him than his mother and sister. What happened to the four year old Samuel who said very seriously to me, "Mommy, YOU are my best friend"??? The kid who constantly made cards with hearts above my name, and whose first written chicken scratch at age 3 was "I love you Mama"? The small child with the pink socks and the huge smile?

Not so long ago, I had a baby and a toddler. Then for a long time, it seemed like I had two preschoolers --one younger and one older. Now suddenly, I have a four year old and a boy who is nearly seven. They rush in and out of the house in a brilliant whirlwind of school, lessons and friends. "Hi Mama, bye Mama. Hi Mommy, Bye Mommy. Hi Mom, Bye." And I am so busy and scattered and frantic that I barely noticed the time slipping away.

Ann

The Magic of Mom’s Bed

By Nancy Nisselbaum

I don’t know what it is about mommy’s bed. But apparently, when a child can’t fall asleep, the only place to go is mom’s bed—and like magic, the sandman comes and knocks said child out. What I found out recently is that it doesn’t even have to be your mom. Marshall was having a friend sleep over the other night. Both boys were snoring happily by about 10 p.m. and I blithely went to bed. About 1 a.m., I sensed a presence by bed. It’s Max saying he can’t fall asleep so I groggily tell him to climb in. He’s asleep in seconds. When I awake in the morning, there’s a boy in bed next to me. No big surprise. But it takes me a minute to realize it’s not mine.

I never intended to co-sleep. But Marshall had other plans. From the minute he was born, he liked to be next to me—in my arms, lying by my side, lying on top of me. For the first week, the only place he slept was on top of my chest. At least he slept, right? I had heat rash from having his sweaty little (warm, lovely) body on top of me practically 24/7.

For the next two years, I pretended that we didn’t co-sleep. I’d put him in his crib and he’d pretend he would sleep through the night. It never happened. At some point, the crying would outlast any visions of sleeping alone dancing in my head. My goal was sleep, and it was best achieved with him beside me.

When he was 2.5, I changed his crib into a toddler bed and built a small wall around the dining room so that he would have more of an official bedroom. Well, that was the end of that. For the next year, I succumbed to the inevitable, stopped pretending, and put him to sleep in my bed. It just worked. My personal cutoff point was sitting in the room until he fell asleep. I refused. To me, that time was more important than sharing my sleeping space with a snoring, kicking, flip-flopping boy who for some reason slept well when in mom’s bed.

Yes, I woke up with toes in my nose. Yes, I woke to the sound of a child falling on the floor. Yes, I woke when he flip-flopped till he was lying on top of me. Yes, I got kicked in the kidneys, the ribs, anyplace he could land a good one. But overall, we slept. Overall, the amount and quality of sleep was better than when he was in a separate room. At 3.5 years, we went bed shopping. He got a low loft bed and slept in it. Went to bed in it and woke up in it. Sure, there were times when I woke in the morning and there was a boy in my bed. Not sure how or when he got there, but he would wake up, come to my room, and crawl in beside me. And honestly, there were times I missed him, missed climbing in next to warm, snoring, flip-flopping little body. But it was time and he was willing. And again, for the most part, it worked. He went to bed and stayed there, and I got my own space back.

It’s not for everyone. But it worked for us. And now? Marshall is nine and there are still times when I have a boy in my bed. The night before the first day of school, I don’t even ask. I let him choose and consistently, he’s chosen my bed. It’s a comfort thing, a safe feeling, a primal urge. I don’t know and honestly, I don’t mind. Will he be there the night before the first day of middle school? High school? Probably not. But for now, he knows that if he needs the safety and magic of mom’s bed, he has it. And I guess his friend Max does too.

Too Old Too Fast?

By Nancy Nisselbaum

This summer, my 9-year-old son lets himself into our apartment after getting off the camp bus. He goes upstairs and plops his stuff down and calls me at work. I get home within an hour, so he’s not home alone for very long. He says he’s fine. He says he can handle it. His friends ask their parents why they aren’t being left home alone. He’s only cried twice.

Don’t ask how many times I’ve cried. How many times I’ve questioned the wisdom of this decision (which, honestly, has been based on monetary concerns but also factored in that he’s a very responsible boy who has handled being home longer than this—it’s the letting himself in part that makes me somewhat concerned). My son is self-reliant for his age. And he handles this responsibility with bravado. He has his own cell phone now—so he can call me when he gets home or I can call him while he’s on the bus. He empties his backpack daily and puts his wet towel and swimsuits in the dryer. He lies on the couch and watches television. It all sounds so innocuous.

Yet I feel torn. Am I growing him up too fast? Am I giving him responsibility that’s too old for his years? I know other 9-year-olds who are as independent, yet I know many more who are never left home alone—EVER!!!! And I don’t feel that’s right either. Kids need to start learning some form of independence, of being separated from mom and able to do stuff on their own. I’ve started this process slowly—leaving the house for 5-minute intervals, then lengthening those, then going to an evening meeting at my local synagogue.

But it was the two times that he cried, that he got scared because he couldn’t get in touch with me (once I didn’t hear the phone and once I was on the subway) that did me in. That raked me over the mommy coals and made me question my—our?—decision. This isn’t something I imposed on him. This is something we talked about and talked about and talked about—and still talk about. We considered various scenarios and he—we?—decided that he was able to handle this. So long as he could get in touch with me. He has the phone numbers of numerous friends and neighbors programmed into his phone, but there’s the embarrassment factor. He couldn’t call Dylan’s mom—he’d be too embarrassed, even though Dylan is never left home alone and when his mom drops Marshall off after picking him up from the bus of camp #2 (which doesn’t do door-to-door drop-off and pick-up as camp #1 does), she makes him talk to her on the cell phone while he goes up to the apartment in the elevator and locks the door.

Add into the mix that we’ve talked about afterschool in the Fall. He goes to the local Y, but we’ve—I’ve?—agreed that he can come home on Fridays by himself and left himself into the apartment. He still says he wants to do it, that he’s not afraid. But maybe I’m a little afraid. Afraid that he’s growing up too fast, that he’s 9 years old but taking on the responsibility of someone much older. Then, just to cap things off, I talk about getting a babysitter for the six nights a year I go to theater. And he looks at me and says, “Why do I need a babysitter? I can put myself to bed.” I calmly explain why that isn’t an option.

Am I growing him up too fast? I think back to my own childhood and realize I was walking to and from school by myself from first grade on. Were times all that different? I’m not sure. But my mom didn’t work when I was in grade school. When I got home, she was there. I’m newly re-employed after 13 months of unemployment. So much happened—so many transitions occurred for a boy who doesn’t like transitions—at the same time: I got a job, he started camp and started letting himself in, then my brother and his family came to visit from Israel and my nieces were staying in our apartment—in Marshall’s room, which meant he was displaced and had no place to call his own for two weeks—and then he started a new camp for two weeks. All events that make a person’s head spin.

I think he’ll be okay. I know he’ll be okay. But I want him to be able to say, “This isn’t working.” And at one point he did. When he cried the second time, I asked him if he wanted to go to Laura’s house after coming home from camp for the rest of the week. And he did. But now he’s back at camp #1 and letting himself him. And I have to be ready at 4:35 to answer his call. I wear my cell phone and make sure the volume is turned up.

Would I be going through this, I wonder, if I weren’t single? Maybe. If I made more money? Maybe. Am I growing him up too fast? Maybe. Is this working? Maybe. But for now, this is the way it is in our family. And for the most part, it’s working. Maybe we’re both growing up a little too fast. Maybe he’s evolving at exactly the right pace for him and I’m reacting like a typical mother—worrying that he’s growing up too fast. We’ll have to see how it all pans out and realize that no decision is ever irrevocable.

Sharing Our Thoughts: Not bonding with newly adopted child

I’m struggling with feelings I never thought I would have for my newly adopted 4-year-old son. It took a few months to come to grips with the fact that I do not love him the same as I do my 8-year-old biological son. It had not occurred to me that that was possible. It was somewhat therapeutic just recognizing it for what it is worth. I would like to think this difference will fade with time.

Responses from Our Wise SMC Members:
"I hope you can give yourself a break. A 4-year-old comes with his own history, complicated by the whole issue of transition, further complicated with whatever trauma might exist related to his previous history and post-institutional stuff. The chances are very strong that the boy you are parenting now will be very different once he develops the confidence to know that you are his mom forever and he gets to know you and his brother, just as you get to know him."

"I love my daughter and would do anything for her. But that deep connection of mother/daughter is missing, at least on my part. My daughter has TOTALLY bonded with me. Thinking about it, it could be that I don’t “love” motherhood. This weekend was the first time I said out loud, “I don’t feel like her mother.” I didn’t like how it sounded and burst into tears. All my friends are supportive and it’s nice to know I’m not alone."

"My personal opinions after adopting two children is that sometimes we feel as though we have to be happy and if we don’t…then there is a huge amount of shame. I adopted twice and I can tell you the experiences were very different. It took me about 8 months to feel like my first daughter’s mother. With my second adoption, I felt love much quicker yet I didn’t really like this little girl. She was angry, stubborn, and not very cute. She will soon be home for a year and I can’t tell you the difference. I just love this child. Never could I have pictured how ell we would all be doing since the adoption in China and the first couple of months home were brutal. So be gentle with yourself. This is a huge life change."

"I wonder if parents in general can sometimes love children differently (regardless of whether adopted or biological) simply because each child has a different personality and “chemistry” with his/her parents…and by “loving differently” it doesn’t necessarily imply a better/worse comparison."

"You don’t say long you have had your son, but if he is “newly adopted,” I think it’s likely your love will grow over time. I started to connect with my adopted son on about the third day of his arrival, but it took at least six months for me to love him really deeply. My daughter (2) is about arrive from the same orphanage, and I’m thinking it may take months for me to love her as deeply as I do my son. FWIW: my stepmother, who birthed four children, once remarked that she never loved a just-born baby as much as the children she already had, that it took time to develop the relationship. I think it’s possible what you’re experiencing may not be completely driven by the “biological” versus “adopted” distinction."

"Children have different needs that they need fulfilled by their mothers. Some children need more cuddling; others need more limits; others need more protection. As mothers, we respond to that."

"I brought my son home right from the hospital and basically did all the care after his birth. Around day six, a friend called to see how it was going and I fell apart crying on the phone. I was overwhelmed, exhausted, and didn’t really like this creature who sucked all the energy out of me. I was the friend everyone loved to watch their kids and now I couldn’t handle one little baby. My friend who has a bio son told me she used to lay on the floor in the nursery and sob for hours after he was born."

"I had very similar feelings after I brought my daughter home. It felt like to wasn’t real, like any minute the movie would be over and the “real parents” would come home from their night out. My daughter, however, bonded to me almost instantly. It has now been a year and 5 months since we arrived home, and there’s no doubt in my mind that I am her mom, but there are still times when I wonder if I would be feeling a stronger connection had she come from me. But that’s not terribly significant to me on a day-to-day basis since she is so clearly the joy of my life."

"I have many of the same feelings. Rather than feeling like a mom, I feel more like mother bear—very protective. I would do anything to keep her safe and I can’t imagine life without her. But I don’t always feel like a mom. I think that’s perfectly normal, even for biological moms. Shortly after I returned home with my daughter, my sister told me she didn’t feel like a mom right away with her biological son."
"I’ve definitely felt that way. I still do, sometimes, when I have the guilts about not spending enough time, not showing enough patience, worrying about work when I should be focused on her (a “real” mommy wouldn’t feel/act that way, right?). I actually talked to a therapist about it, and it’s not abnormal. The bottom line is, even though I feel that way sometimes, it doesn’t negate the fact that I absolutely adore her and can’t imagine my life without her. Babysitter or mommy, she is the best part of my life."
"I did have that “more like a caregiver” feeling with my adopted daughter. She came home when she was 23 months old after living with a foster family in Romania. Shortly after we brought her home, I started emailing the foster family with updates—they loved her and missed her so much. But I felt she was more their daughter than mine. I loved her from the beginning, just didn’t feel like I was the mom. I do now. She has now been home with us two years. With my biological son, I felt like his mom from the minute he was born, if not before. But I’ve read the posts where women say they didn’t feel like that with their biological children. I love them both very much, but it took me a while to feel like my daughter’s mom."

"A friend of mine with two bio kids tells me that she periodically loses that mothering feeling (her oldest is now 10!), in part because each new stage of her kids’ lives in some ways means that she is learning a new way to be a mom. So she feels like she doesn’t know what she’s doing, which makes her feel less like a “mom” and more like a caregiver. My daughter is now 2 and a few months... and I’ve been with her since she was 4 months old. I still go in and out of that feeling, and think that may always be the case. Like the others, though, I adore her, can’t imagine life without her, and am amazed by the power of my fierce mother bear instincts. Anyone messes with my baby, they’d better watch out!!! That is pretty powerful mom stuff."

"It took me a LONG time to feel like I loved my son. I would read all these postings about how parents were so thrilled to be home with their babies and loved them instantly. I felt like a monster. I felt terribly guilty. Shortly after we returned from Kaz, I told my therapist how I was feeling—not love, but actually put upon by this little creature I had brought into my life. I called it “the dirty little secret of motherhood.” I hated motherhood for a long time, felt I had made a big mistake. After we had been home four months, another mom in my neighborhood told me that about three weeks after she gave birth to her son, she told her husband, “We’ve made a terrible mistake.” By the time I she told me this, she felt differently, but I can’t tell you how comforting it was to hear another mom openly express the feelings I was having."

Unsure, Unsettled, Undecided

From Unsure, Unsettled, Undecided:
The pendulum of my SMC decision-making has most recently swung toward NO WAY!! How could anyone ever do this? How could I ever do this? NO, NO, NO!!! I had been more positive about choosing to be an SMC, but I haven’t been able to shake this place I am now in. I could use some feedback about the different stages you have gone through as well as some of your thoughts and feelings about how one can do something seemingly so emotionally, physically, and financially difficult as having and raising a child alone. At the moment, only the model of two parents together works for me, no matter how I turn it around. I would like to get back to a more open place about it.

Dear Unsure:
First of all, you don’t have to do this and that’s okay. Second of all, why do you think it’s so hard? Your fellow SMCs aren’t superwomen. We’re bright, committed, and fairly independent, but we’re not the CEOs who run the world or Mother Teresas or anything like that. All kinds of women do it and do it well enough. Maybe you should hang out with some moms and their kids of various ages to get a sense of what it’s like.

Has something recently happened that may have caused your thinking to take a turn? Maybe a comment from your family or a sudden realization that something you had not previously thought of may be unmanageable? We’ve all woken in the middle of the night thinking “What will I do in the middle of winter when I have to shovel the snow and get the car warmed up in time to go to work? Who will watch the baby? How can I possibly manage this!”

Then, we joined SMC and started reading and participating in our local groups and on the email groups. We read the "Single Mothers by Choice" book and raided the library and checked out every book on marriage, single parenthood, breast pumping at work, etc. We started discussing our fears with friends who helped come up with solutions.

This is it is a process. Don’t dig into anything you’re not yet ready to handle. If you are informed as much as possible, you’ll be in the best place to make the decision that is right for you. In the meantime, when that wave of terror hits you, be aware, YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Many of us have been through it and come out the other side.

Realize that you are on the horns of a dilemma. To be brutally honest, if you are in your late-30s or early 40s, it is unlikely you will find a partner in time to conceive a biological child from a fertility/biological clock perspective. Are you willing to forgo a biological child? You could potentially achieve pregnancy using a donor egg and your partner’s sperm. Or are you willing to become a parent through adoption. Try to pinpoint what bothers you most about being an SMC and focus on that. Find a good therapist to help you think this through. You need to be at peace with whatever decision you make.

Perhaps you might take six months and think about bring an SMC every day, every minute, in every situation—sick, on a date, happy, crazy busy with work. Whatever is going on in your life, think and ask, “How would this be different as a mom? How would I handle this situation?” Some things may appear to be major challenges, but would they make you walk away from the idea forever?

One day a friend who the mom of six kids said something that has stuck with us. We were talking about the Thinking stage and all the doubts, convictions, worries, and so on. She said, “That’s great to be aware and go into it with your eyes open, but the thing that is missing for you as you consider all of these situations is that you are not a mother yet, so you don’t have access to that strange wealth of strength and patience—resources you only know about and tap into once you are a mom. And, of course, you can't possibly ever imagine the incredible love you will have for your child, and which will help you find those resources."

Being a parent can be MUCH harder than you ever prepare for, but we’re also often amazed at the things we can do, tolerate, and roll with—things we never knew we could do until we became a mom. Good luck to you in your decision-making.

What is an SMC?

An SMC is a single mother by choice. As I ventured deeper into this world I discovered there were thousands of women like me here in the US and around the world. We shared similar stories, similar hopes and dreams, and yet could also be very different in our backgrounds and values. I interact with SMCs every day, and in hearing their stories, realized how unremarkable my own journey is.

Single moms certainly are not unusual, but the basic difference is that most SMCs identify themselves quite strongly as women who have made a decision not to wait for marriage, and who have carefully considered the social, emotional, financial, and legal issues before proceeding to become mothers on their own.

Occasionally I toss out the terms SMC or choice mom in conversation, perhaps because I hope it becomes less of an unusual idea. Sometimes I'm surprised to find that others have an intimate connection with SMCs. My friend N, for example, a 30-ish grad student and mom to a 2 year old, had an aunt who had a child through donor insemination over twenty years ago. When I brought up my own thoughts about becoming an SMC, there was nothing surprising about it to her, which was nice.

In truth, my efforts to promote awareness of SMCs have been half-hearted. Not everyone approves, of course, often blaming the moms for being selfish in bringing a child into the world without a father, going against the natural order of things, or using a child to satisfy their own emotional needs. I figure the people who are not going to approve are not going to approve, and their judgment of me doesn't really matter. However, I would hesitate to bring this up with someone unless I felt they were going to treat it with respect, empathy, and compassion. I certainly did not need a lot of negative energy and judgmental thoughts (I can manage those on my own, thank you very much) while carefully thinking through my decision and plan of action.

As for the child not having a father, I believe that my child will have a father, even if he or she does not have one at birth. I am convinced that I will meet someone who will be my husband, life partner, lover, and friend. However, I am not so sure that this will happen during my child-bearing years. I've done my share of trying to meet someone, and men on online dating sites who want to form families don't always look at women over the age of 36. I expect that being an SMC takes the pressure off of dating and relationships, and that once I have a child, I can date without the pressure of finding someone in time to have a baby. SMCs who have gotten married after having their child say that their relationships are much better at this point in their life, when the pressure from the biological clock is off.

Perhaps all it takes is someone with J-Lo's celebrity status to make the masses more aware, and perhaps less disapproving, of choice motherhood. In the movie "The Back-up Plan", J-Lo plays a young woman who goes through artifical insemination to have a baby, only to then meet the man of her dreams. (Yes, I'm sure this happens to all SMCs -- not!)

I was Never a Thinker

I was never a thinker. I always knew that someday, somehow, I would be a mother. I remember being a teenager and saying to myself: “Self, if I’m not married by the time I’m 35, I’ll just have a baby on my own.”

Today is my son’s 9th birthday. It still boggles my mind.

There are mornings when I wake up and it strikes me all anew—there’s a child in the room next door and that child is mine. I’M A MOTHER. I want to scream it to the world. The word single doesn’t really enter into the equation. Yes, I’m a single mother. Yes, I did this on my own, consciously choosing to have a child who wouldn’t have a tangible father in his life. And we’re a family, a perfect little unit that suits us just fine. His friends know he doesn’t have a dad and sometimes they ask questions—but most times they don’t.

I was never a thinker. This has always been my destiny. Motherhood was in my soul. Sure, it’s hard, but I look at my married friends with kids and you know what? Their life is hard too. Parenthood is hard, whether you’re doing it alone or in a traditional nuclear family or in a divorced family or in a same-sex family. But parenthood is also magical. It opens your eyes to world again. It let me rediscover the wonders of this planet.

I knew nothing about dinosaurs before I had Marshall. Now? I can name them all. Who knew Star Wars and Legos could be so all-encompassing? I remember walking him to preschool when he was 3. The walk for me alone took 5 minutes. I left us 20 minutes because there were cracks in the sidewalk we had to follow; there were water access pipes that had caps that NEEDED to be spun EVERY SINGLE MORNING; there were stories to be told and songs to be sung along the way.

Today is my son’s 9th birthday. He was born two days after my 40th birthday—the absolute best birthday present I ever got. I was never a thinker. I was always a mother. It took a few years of trying and the stars to be aligned in just the right pattern for that vision to become a reality but I am a mother to an amazing boy. And together we forge a path and embark on an incredible journey. Sure, we make mistakes long the way but we also light new ways of thinking and doing that fill my heart and make my soul sing.

I was never a thinker. I was always a mother. Today, my son is 9, and I feel so blessed to have him in my life.

Nancy Nisselbaum

Thinking

A New Beginning??

Here's what I want. I want a baby.

I am 39 years old. I am single. I have never been in a long term relationship. I am facing the reality that it is just not going to happen for me in time to have a baby.

I have always wanted kids. When I was a kid I wanted to be a mom. I used to love to babysit. I don't so much love babies, per se, as kids. I am great with children. I have 3 little brothers who I have essentially helped raise. They are now 16, 13 and 8. I am lucky to have them in my life. And now I want my own.

I am now facing the reality of having a baby on my own. By myself.

I am terrified. I have been thinking about this for years but it is starting to form itself into a reality. I have been thinking a lot about what it means to raise a child who has no father. This is tearing me up. I am really close with my dad and couldn't imagine not having a dad. This has been the main hindrance in making my decision. There is so much to think about and my head is swirling and I feel really good and relieved and really scared all at the same time. There is much to write about. I feel instinctively that this is the beginning of a whole new journey.

More to come.
Nicole E.