When You Sit Right Down in the Middle of Yourself

“Wow, she looks amazing. I hope I look that good some day.”

I see the imperfections; they see the Mama.

“Don’t be silly, Mom. You already look that amazing.”

I love my girls. They are good for my ego (most of the time). But we do live in a tricky world where figuring out this whole self-image thing gets pretty complicated really fast and can be devastatingly destructive. I know it is an issue both males and females battle (my husband doesn’t go to the gym just because he likes to wake up early and smell other people’s sweat), but as a female raising females, the female battle is the one I am more familiar with and the one I have been trying to figure out how to talk about.

When I was younger, I did the whole mall modeling thing. I even had an agent. I exercised in my bedroom in the mornings and before bed, doing sit ups and leg lifts then measuring myself. I always knew my size. I also always knew every single flaw with my appearance. Eyebrows were waxed and plucked, skin was inspected for any blemishes, and I would spend hours pacing back and forth in front of a full length mirror. Then I’d go to school and hear someone say, “Sure Emma’s pretty, but then she opens her mouth.” Bam! And if people heard I was modeling, the comments were, “Seriously? Her?” Yeah. Their skepticism really rammed home my knowledge of my short comings (including my shortness . . . I’m only 5’8”).

Now as the size 2 mom people love to bash in blogs and songs, I wish I could say things are better, but people still love to be snarky. It is up to me to ignore the “skinny bitch” comments I hear from random strangers when I am shopping (wish I could say I was joking) and in songs (can’t love “All About That Bass” if it is calling me a bitch because I am not overweight). It is up to me to hold my head high and not feel responsible for people obsessing about their thighs just because mine don’t touch. Honestly, I don’t look at or measure other people’s thighs and didn’t know “thigh gap” was something to talk about until people started making such a fuss about it on facebook. I only think about my thigh gap when I drop my phone while I’m on the toilet. I cannot let other people’s visions of themselves define my vision of myself.

That is what I try to teach my daughters. They already get bombarded with pressure to look certain ways. Don’t believe me? Let your second grader shave her head. Count how many people tell her she is no longer a girl or no longer pretty or that she is weird, wrong, etc. Let your first grader wear shoes from the boys’ department. Less extreme action, but she’ll get similar comments. The pressure to look one way and fit a generic mold of “this is what little girls are” is intense and destructive. Not every person fits the same mold and trying to force them to breaks them. As parents, my husband and I decided our goal was to help our girls express themselves and be true to themselves - even if that means coming home from school and shaving their heads in the bathroom then rocking a Star Wars t-shirt and one of my blazers in the pediatrician's office. Looking fierce, Tuna!

My girls and I (and my husband, too!) watch America’s Next Top Model or Star Trek as our evening tv. These two shows were chosen intentionally because they help us teach our daughters to be "fierce" and embrace their differences (and remind us to do the same in our own lives!).  Their dad and I can say over and over, “you are beautiful as is,” but it doesn’t have the same impact as hearing a super model or star ship captain with perfect hair tell them that being true to themselves makes them strong and gorgeous.

Here are some of our favorite lessons the girls can take away from those shows to help them battle the pressures to “look perfect” all the time:

• ·         Confidence is Beautiful – The judges on ANTM say this all the time. They send girls home for not being confident. They tell girls that beauty comes from within and that they must BELIEVE they are beautiful.
  
• ·         Compassion is Powerful – This lesson the girls see on both shows. One of their favorite episodes of Star Trek is “Plato’s Stepchildren” because it shows Cpt Kirk and the other crew members showing compassion to a man, Alexander, who had only experienced bullying and abuse before he met them because he didn’t look the same as the other people. Alexander’s transformation is a result of that compassion and helps to defeat the bullies. The compassion was stronger than the hatred showered on him. We talk to the girls not only about the need for them to act as Kirk did to others, but also act that way to themselves. They must show themselves the same compassion.
  
• ·         Diversity is Necessary – This is a Star Trek lesson that is evident just by looking at the make-up of the bridge. The crew comes from all over. Each character brings different strengths to the table, and Captain Kirk relies on all of them to help him.
  
• ·         No One is Always Perfect Looking – ANTM is great for teaching this lesson. Every girl has something she doesn’t like about herself, including Tyra Banks. Plus, by watching old seasons and comparing them to new ones, the girls also see how the trends change. If a girl from season 20 made herself look and dress exactly like a girl from season one, she would be outdated and wrong. There is no point beating ourselves up to fit the idea of perfection of the moment because the moment changes. Also, the fact that the judges don’t always agree drives home the message that this idea of perfection is a myth. Perfection is an idea that varies from person to person, minute to minute. We should not change who we are or sacrifice ourselves to a false idea.
  
• ·         Be True to YOU – Both shows teach this well. Captain Kirk and Tyra Banks in their own very different ways encourage the people around them to be strong by being true to themselves. When the girls do that, they can be more confident, embrace diversity, show compassion to themselves and others, ignore other people’s definitions of perfection, and – most importantly – be happy.
  

As Ani Di Franco, my other go-to for shareable wisdom for my girls, so nicely says, “when you sit right down in the middle of yourself, you’re gonna want to have a comfortable chair.”

Why I am ok with my daughter shaving her head.

“Mom, did you know some kids don’t know about gender equality? Ugh. It is so annoying.”

my Righteous Babe in her fave "someone call the girl police" shirt

This seems to be a constant source of annoyance for my older daughter and her personal mission in life. We have nicknamed her our Gender Equality Warrior Princess. Ever since kids started teasing her about her running shoes when she was in first grade (story here), she has been painfully aware of gender stereotypes in this country and the limitations they try to put on people. It bugs her. I am bugged, too. Her dad is, too.

She made this shirt herself to spread her
gender equality message.

There are a lot of problems when it comes to gender inequality and gender stereotyping.  They range from day to day little things that the girls face in school to larger problems that adult men and women have to deal with in jobs, politics, and health. How we are treated and how we are expected to behave are still defined by gender. For my older daughter, that becomes an annoying problem because she wants to think and act beyond those boundaries. She wants to make decisions for herself based on her own personality and preferences and does not think she should be limited by something as arbitrary as gender.

For the last three years, she has been coming to terms with how her classmates want her to behave and accepting that when she follows her heart, they won’t always approve of it. We have a saying in our house: “Not everyone likes broccoli.” Every person has different tastes and won’t like the same things. We can’t change our tastes to suit the tastes of the people around us, and we can’t expect them to change their tastes to suit ours. It is not always an easy thing to do, being true to herself in the face of snarky girls who mock her for not wearing nail polish or sparkly clothes, but she perseveres.

For her father, the journey to feminism was a bit different. He thought he was a feminist until he had daughters and a wife. Then the tiny little prejudices started showing. They seep in because they are such a strong part of culture. It is hard to avoid absorbing some assumptions of who should do what or who is capable of doing what. He has grown to be a gender equality warrior along with his daughter, and I think, like my own dad, it isn’t because he is the father of girls, but simply because he is a father. He doesn’t care about gender equality because he is a feminist in the sense that he thinks females need to be defended but in the sense that he loves his children and wants them to have access to all their dreams and to be free to be themselves. If we had sons instead of daughters, he would want the same for them. He is a feminist in the sense that he wants all people to live to their full potentials.

That is why I am so excited about Emma Watson’s speech to the UN. For my Gender Equality Warrior Princess, seeing Hermione standing up - her voice shaking, but still speaking up - telling the world to look at gender, “as a spectrum, instead of two sets of opposing ideals,” is powerful. It is empowering. It is reassuring. It is telling my daughter she has been right all along and she is not alone. It is saying, “you can like fairies and hockey, and that’s ok, and I stand with you.” It is also supporting their dad. It tells him his role as a father is valuable, and his emotions are valuable. It tells him, “you can love your daughters just as much as your wife does, and that’s ok, and I stand with you.”

I love that speech, and I love the He For She campaign. I hope it reaches many people, but even if it doesn’t, it will reach my daughter and help her. And as a mom, that makes me happy. 

"You're weird, Mom."

“NOOO!!!!!! Tribbles don’t go for walks! What are you thinking? You have to CARRY it! I can’t believe you did that!” *insert massive wailing*

"But I can't go to sleep! I don't have The Flu!" *insert frantic searching under the bed for a stuffed flu virus*

Or another example, the other day I was sitting on the couch, silently minding my own business, ignoring my children, when the older one walked over and yelled, “Mommy!” I responded calmly, “um, what?” to which she yelled back, “I don’t want to talk to you right now!” *insert confused blinking*

Recently we had relatives over and during some down time, the girls were playing in the dining room area while the adults relaxed on the couch and I puttered around the kitchen. The girls were being their usual selves, playing their normal imaginary games. I was only half listening, just catching stray sentences about coronations, brain eating amoebas, vampires, time travel, etc. Then I looked at our guest sitting on the couch who apparently had been listening in.

“Is this what you listen to all day?” she asked.

“Yup.”

To my girls, all this is completely, totally, 100% serious stuff. To me, it is hard to not bust out laughing sometimes (a lot of the time). There are times it gets annoying and I did have to make a “No Fighting About Imaginary Stuff” rule, but it is usually so random that it is hard to not just go, “wait, what did you just say?”

My mom says, among other things, kids need humor and heroes. I totally agree.  The heroes part I’ll talk about later. The humor part seems to be one sided a lot of the time, however, sadly. The girls are hilarious to me. What they say and do and how they dress. I love it. I often step out of the room to laugh so they won’t think I am laughing at them (which I am). They don’t see the humor in what they are doing, though, which makes sense. They don’t always see humor in what I am doing either. A lot of what I have to do is not funny. Cooking, cleaning, paying bills, driving, laundry, and kitty litter are not especially entertaining. Especially the bill paying. Not funny at all. And kitty litter is literally poopy. So what do we do? How do we teach our kids that there is humor in the world and that they don’t have to take everything so seriously? Even though being a grown-up is blechily serious. Ugh. This is an important lesson, so it requires extra effort no matter how serious and grown-up we feel. Here’s what the girls’ dad and I try to do:

1. Goofy selfies. Trite, right? But it never fails to make them laugh and shows them we don’t take ourselves so seriously we are afraid to look ridiculous. Their dad is extra good at this.

   

   They stole my phone and I got it back
   FULL of pictures like this.

2. Horrible dancing. This is not hard. Good dancing is hard. Horrible dancing is just fun. All we have to do is, again, not take ourselves super seriously. I have a really bad back, so sometimes this one is actually painful, but the pay off is worth it when the girls join in and relax. Enjoying being alive is a good thing.
3. Decorate however we want.

   

   Watching some tv with Pillow Nana

   We do like HGTV and decorating magazines, books, and blogs. My older daughter stole my copy of Young House Love and has already planned her own first house. But when it comes to decorating our own home, we don’t mind mixing walruses, dinosaurs, and skulls. Those things make us happy, so that is what we put out. All year. We tell the girls we decorate to make ourselves smile. And we do. It is hard to not smile when I look around my living room and see a crazy blend of Polish folk art, Ukrainian embroidery, a giant robotic triceratops, a life size stuffed version of my mom (not taxidermy . . .  like a rag doll . . . slightly less creepy), my Jane Austen action figure, a sparkly purple skull, etc. To others I’m sure it is a random clutter of things that make them say, “um, what’s that?” (I’m sure because they do say that when they come here and see Pillow Nana), but to us it is our home.
4. Sing along with songs we like. We can’t sing. Really. We’re not musically talented at all. A lot of the time it is just lip syncing. But it’s fun. And often drives the girls nuts. Which is just extra fun. So when we hear a song we like, we go along with it. I admit, whenever I hear Eye of the Tiger, I bust out not only my best lip syncing but also my super awesome horrible dancing. Actually, I have pretty much these same dance moves (although my car isn’t as cool):

Our end goal is simple. We want the girls to be happy. Life is full of bad stuff. There is disease and war and natural disasters. There are also all the little things that drain us day to day like bullies, annoying people, boring tasks, stresses, etc. We need to learn how to focus on the joy whenever we can. They can’t always see how funny and silly their little lives our, so as grown-ups we have to show them it is ok to laugh and give them things to laugh at.

We have to show them not everything has to be super serious because there are enough serious things already. So put that goofy hat on for no reason other than to make a kid smile. Don’t worry about looking like a doofus.

Dance like Elaine. Go on. Right now. Or when you pick your kids up from school. Or in the grocery store.

"School's better . . . but not perfect."

Honestly, that’s fine. I’ll take it. If you’re not sure where this is coming from, read THIS first. All caught up? Here’s what happened next.

My daughter did go to school and did talk to her teacher. She was nervous, but she got through it. At first, she didn’t get exactly what she wanted. Of course, exactly what she wanted was for either everyone else to disappear or for her desk to be moved to the hall. Not really realistic. Instead, the teacher said she would address the problem of kids talking out of turn and being disrespectful to the whole class the next day and by the end of the week everyone would have new seats. Rearranging seats is not as simple as one might assume. Kids are people with complex little personalities and the teacher has a lot to take into consideration. Plus, this is still the beginning of the year. She is getting to know people and balancing things out. Additionally, entire classes cannot be uprooted just because my (adorable princess center of MY universe) daughter wants her to move everyone. Long story short, I was satisfied, but my daughter was not entirely convinced things were going to get better. To complicate things, she then got sick and was absent the next day. D’oh!

Fast forward a week. Her teacher, being a professional who has her eye on the bigger picture beyond just my one child, did address the whole class. She talked to my daughter a couple more times over the week to find out more information about what the problem was and did separate my daughter from the girl who was harassing her (yes, I think repeatedly questioning someone’s gender during class every single day is harassment).

From my daughter’s perspective, the situation is slightly improved because she is no longer directly next to that one girl, however she is still there. Now we are talking about what my daughter can do on her own to not let the annoying stuff get to her and ruin her day. Filtering techniques: focusing on the positive things that are there; instead of focusing on what other people are doing, focusing on what she is doing and her own purpose. The point is, she cannot control other people, but she can control herself.

From my perspective, this is a huge victory because the whole thing was dealt with without me getting involved at all. My daughter did all the talking to her teacher herself. She felt comfortable enough to speak up for herself. That’s a big deal. It is also a victory because her teacher didn’t brush her off. Her teacher either was already aware of the situation from seeing it or considerate enough to listen to and believe her student. Either way, good sign of a good teacher. Teachers have a lot of other goals without also worrying about social problems and classroom discipline, but the social problems and classroom discipline have a huge impact on learning. I am very hopeful for the rest of the year and glad that our message “teachers are partners” was proven true. Oh, and it helped that my daughter earned the Take a Fuzzy Friend to School card. That always makes school better.

Heading to school with a smile and a fuzzy Dronkey friend.

“Mom, please, can I watch Queen now? You know, the fun one?”

Fandoms are fun!

OK, I admit inside I did do a Mommy Victory Dance of Joy when my daughter reqested I put on the Bohemian Rhapsody music video. As much as I want my girls to be themselves, have their own tastes, explore their personalities and feel free to have opinions which differ from mine or my husband’s, part of me really dreads the idea of them crying and screaming over pop singers like Justin Bieber or whoever else is out there (I’m really trying to not know). I remember thinking the girls around me who were losing their minds over New Kids on the Block were slightly nuts, and then as a mom hearing about girls physically harming themselves over that Bieber kid just made me eeek a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love fun fandoms and being enthusiastic about stuff (this Simon Pegg quote is on our fridge), but I think enthusiasm and obsession are two very different things. And I think there is a difference between blind adoration and gleeful admiration.

So what do I do to try to counter the strangely obsessive pop culture stuff the girls encounter when they get to school? On weekends and in the mornings, I blast MY music at them (insert evil laugh). They do have their own CD player in their room and their own CDs – older one’s fave is her Taylor Swift Red CD and younger one loves her Everly Brothers – and they do have their own playlist on my phone which includes the Frozen soundtrack, but I admit to trying to teach them there is more music out there. When I was a kid, I listened to my parents’ favorites which was a lot of Beatles. I think that’s a great place to start. In Ukraine, that was all I played on my phone during our down time, and my daughter learned a lot of their songs. I also listened to Guns and Roses, Amy Grant, and Dead Milkmen when I was in elementary school. A bit of an eclectic mix, and I’m really not sure Dead Milkmen are entirely appropriate, so I might hold off on them (although I do still listen to them as a guilty pleasure occasionally).

In the mornings, while we are getting ready, I put on Pandora. Last year it was the Cat Stevens station.

So nice and chill! What a nice way to start the day. This year, I decided to boost the energy level a bit, so we switched to the Queen station. The girls LOVED it. I like to use weekends to push my own agendas (also known as parenting), so I spent a day just playing Queen songs and watching Queen videos on YouTube and talking about why Freddie Mercury was awesome. It was a really fun day. The girls were learning life lessons and how to head bang and insulting my hair (my hair naturally looks like Brian May's at its fluffiest), and I was getting bounce around like a doof and giggle and play with my kids. So what are the great lessons that can be learned from spending a day with Queen?

1. If you are passionate about something, do that. Queen had a passion for music and creating new, cool songs together. Freddie Mercury had a passion for writing and singing. When the girls learned that he was singing right up until he died, they were impressed.
2. If you have a talent, use it ALL. One of the girls favorite songs is Bohemian Rhapsody. They love how it sounds like so many pieces all in one. They also thought it was cool how not all the Queen songs over the years sounded alike. There is a variety of sounds and styles. When they learned the songs were written by the band members and they each had different tastes, but they agreed to use and appreciate the talents of everyone, the girls thought that was really cool. Talent wasn’t wasted. It was stretched.
3. You don’t have to like everything about someone or know every detail to listen to or like their music. Ok, so this isn’t strictly Queen related, but it is important. Do I want my girls to imitate everything Queen or any other rock band did? Of course not! Although, the part about getting a degree in physics like Brian May can be imitated with my blessing. Liking a band does not mean memorizing every fact about them and shouldn’t. I like Ani DiFranco, but I have no idea when her birthday is. How does that change how her music makes me feel? Also, fans don’t need to prove themselves by trying to become in every way the people they are listening to. The girls can bounce around to Radio Ga Ga without needing to also get drunk in a bar in London. I like when there are some admirable qualities, of course, and those are what I focus on when I talk to the girls (physics degree, use of talent, camaraderie, creativity, etc), but everyone has flaws and makes mistakes. We talk about the flaws and learn from them, too, so we DON’T imitate those parts. Mostly, though, we talk about the music and enjoy it and live our own lives, because frankly we are awesome as is. The girls know the name of Freddie Mercury and that is pretty much all the Queen trivia they can give you. Everything else was broad strokes: they wrote their own songs, there were four of them, Freddie died after he got HIV, Crazy Little Thing Called Love was written in the bath tub (ok, that's specific, but funny so totally worth knowing).
4. It’s ok to get pumped up about yourself. I love listening to Queen in the morning because I like the idea of sending my girls to school singing “We will ROCK YOU!” I want them pumped up about themselves and about life. I want them to celebrate their successes and be proud of themselves. I want them to feel like they can conquer the world. One thing we talked about was the difference in the messages of the songs. They weren’t all about dating or hooking up or breaking up. There were songs about simply kicking butt and being awesome. That, I think, is a good thing to have as a background soundtrack for a fourth grader.

If my daughters don’t like my same music, that’s fine. I assume they won’t like all the same things as me, but I can still expose them to it and talk to them about it. I can still try to teach them there is a world bigger than what they see and hear at the lunch table. And I can explain that they will most likely never marry a pop star, so devoting all their time, energy, and money to obsessing over one is not healthy. It is much healthier to just rock out and be awesome for themselves. So this is how I’m parenting in the mornings, and I’m having a good time empowering my girls, so don’t stop me now. (And, yes, this is my personal Mom Theme Song.)

"You may think I'm not powerful, but I am very powerful."

It is not easy to be a little kid.  There is a lot that cannot be done when one is six years old and barely four feet tall.  That being said, what can be done is incredible.

My husband, parents, in-laws, and I are news watchers and don’t like to sit idly by when we see something we don’t like.  Since their births, our girls have been involved.  Our older daughter was born in the middle of the Orange Revolution and was included in her grandfather’s book which chronicled the events of the revolution.  You could say she was born into political consciousness and fighting for social justice.

At four years old, she decided she wanted to help other little kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan after she learned they needed more school supplies.  Her preschool did a penny drive for Pennies for Peace, but she wanted to do more.  She set up a lemonade stand during my mother’s garage sale.  Filled with a sense of importance and power, she approached every person and told them why they needed to buy lemonade from her, showing them a poster she put together with help from her grandmother.  Penny by penny, nickle by nickle, she raised several dollars and sent them off with a feeling of real accomplishment.

Now it is her little sister’s turn to change the world.  Last year when I shaved my head to raise money for children’s cancer research with St Baldrick’s Foundation, my younger daughter said she wanted to participate, too. At the time her father and I thought she was too young.  We were worried about the physical discomfort of it for her as well as questioning whether or not she fully understood what the event was about. To her credit, she didn’t forget about it or lose focus.  For the last year she has been talking about shaving her head as she watched my hair grow back.  When her school started talking about St Baldrick’s this year, she instantly said she wanted to be a shavee.  We told her to think about it for a couple weeks before we would sign her up.  Again, we wanted to be sure she really knew what she was doing.  We had a lot of conversations about it, and she made a pro and con list. In the end, the only negative she could come up with was her uncertainty about what the actual shaving will feel like.  After her father test buzzed a patch behind her ear, she was 100% ready to go.  We signed her up, and she set her first goal.  “What did you raise, Mama?  I’ll raise more than you.”  She did! In less than 24 hours she reached her first goal of $420. She created a video so she could tell people herself why she was going to shave her head (and compare herself to a Dalek). In less than 48 hours, she passed her second goal of $806.  She has continued to raise more every day since then.

a message from Yaroslava from Alex Yanevsky on Vimeo.

The coolest thing?  It doesn’t surprise her.  She assumed people would want to help children with cancer.  She assumed her voice would be powerful enough to draw people to her cause.  When I told her she hit her first goal, she looked me square in the eyes and said, “I want to raise more.”

This feeling of power is not a selfish power.  She is powerful in her ability to help others.  She wants to raise money for someone else, for children with cancer and for their families who are sad. This sense of power and responsibility spills over into other areas as well.  The girls understand that their actions affect others and that they have a responsibility to contribute positively to their community.  This affects how they treat their classmates and teachers.

We want our kids to be kids and have carefree lives, however we also want them to feel that they can use their voices, that their voices deserve to be heard, and that they should try to fix things when they see injustice.  I do worry about burdening them with too much social responsibility and too much knowledge of the evils of the world.  We heavily filter what info they get from the news.  For example, as we have been glued to the news coming from Ukraine (my husband’s home country), we have only told them basic information.  They know people have died and are being hurt and that Kyiv is on fire, but they don’t know about the torture or see the pictures.  We constantly assure them that their grandparents and other relatives are staying safe.  We show them their grandfather on the news safe and sound to add extra comfort and peace of mind.  Still, they care and want to help.  My younger daughter very seriously put her spoon down during breakfast this morning to tell me, "I want to go to Ukraine. I want to go and find the bad guys and tell them to stop hurting Ukraine. I'll say, 'God loves you and you are supposed to not hurt people.' I really want to go and help the people." I told her we couldn’t go to Ukraine right now, and she glared at me a bit.  Later she asked how much longer till she shaves her head.  I answered three more weeks and she replied, “good.  Then I have time for Ukraine.”  It is certainly tricky trying to keep them in the loop without feeding them too much info or causing too much worry.  Because, in terms of the Ukraine situation, she seems to have set her mind on being a hero again, we will have to come up with a way for her to feel she is using her powers once more.  And then, hopefully, she can spend some time just playing with her Legos or having snowball fights.

If at six years old she has already taken on fighting cancer and an Eastern European bloody regime, what more will she do as she gets older?  And how much can the two girls together accomplish?  And how much can the world change if more little girls embraced the power they have?

Want to help her "save little kids and make their families happy"?  You can donate here. 

*Update* Since she couldn't go to Ukraine is person, Yaroslava sent a message instead.  She made cards for her grandfather to share with people there, and she created this video for them.

Пісня Ясі для людей в Україні from Alex Yanevsky on Vimeo.