Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human

The Joys, Detritus and Unimaginable Aspects of Parenting

February is Upon Us

February, at our house, is like some literally “sick” prime time television game show- will the adults emerge with full use of their faculties after four weeks stuck in the house with snotty kids, rainy weather, and nothing exciting out on DVD?

Basically, this is my nervous breakdown season. Every year it is the same- we begin a marathon of holidays, birthdays and days off from school culminating in a back to back birthday extravaganza at the beginning of February. All while going in and out of flus, colds, etc. though after getting the flu-mist this year there was less of an onslaught.

We knew this was coming. We’d done pretty well up to mid-Jan- kept our sense of humor, drank our calcium/D-vitamin orange juice and had plenty of Sudafed on hand. But knowing that at any moment I could be housebound for six weeks (like last year), I made a bold move and repainted half the interior of our home in cheery colors; apple green, sky blue and Martha Stewart’s Pale Naples Yellow. So that even though we’d be sick, we wouldn’t be depressed out of our minds as well.

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copyright May 1999 Beren deMotier

How Stripping Prepared Me for Parenting

Generally speaking, I consider myself to have an adversarial relationship with my past. I don’t look back oh so fondly on those various stages of my life which have included hippie chick bisexual, radicalesbian feminist, leather queen wanna-be, and failed artistic poseur. Really, thank God I met my ever-so-sensible wife, I was going to hell in a hand basket.

However, I had an epiphany the other day. I share this desperate “grabbing at straws to make sense of life” effort because surely there are others out there who want to find a greater meaning, an intention to their prior and present existence, or a perfectly good cop out. And what I realized was that everything I had lived had led me to my present profession; parent.

Which may sound like a stretch, but bear with me.

My theory goes like this: we’re all just big recycling boxes. All of us. Whatever we’re doing with our lives. We may be in throwing away mode, or we may be scrounging in the bottom of that box for something we thought we’d never need again in a million years. But we are “one” with the box. In it goes all of our experience, or lack thereof. All of our hopes, dreams, failures, tragedies and successes. I’d like to think that all those plans we don’t finish (the half an art degree, the summer spent learning fire-fighting, Reiki 101), or the ones that turn out amiss (those fatalistic love affairs, that tattoo covering your entire left calf), have a purpose. And while this is a particularly narcissistic and self-serving philosophy (I am the last year of Boomer), there it is.

To read entire article, click on How Stripping Prepared Me For Parenthood

We’re Gonna Be Rich!

It’s hard to be a grown-up nowadays without resorting to colorful language. There’s the economy, the war, the layoffs at work, the driver in the next lane who doesn’t believe in blinkers and the letter from the IRS saying that the tax return is weeks away if only you’ll fill out yet another form.

It’s enough for anyone to sport some four letter words.

Problem is, we don’t want our kids to use those four letter words, and we as the childrearing books constantly remind us, we are their primary teachers, like it or not.

My wife and I are kind of old fashioned about things like these. While we know our kids hear these words at school, and read them scratched onto the bathroom walls, we still maintain this vain hope that the f-word won’t begin leaking out of their mouths at regular intervals as they mature. Neither of us swore whatsoever as kids, we would have died rather than use the kind of words you hear nowadays. But in college we became potty mouths and that’s a hard habit to break.

To read the entire article, click on Cuss Jar

The Bellybutton Wars

"I am frequently amazed at the sick ironies that life has to offer. At the extent to which God, fate, happenstance, Karma, whatever, will go to in order to make us; a) learn something, b) get what we deserve or c) show us life is a farce.

Case in point. Prior to becoming a Donna Reed of the lesbian set I was an avowed and fairly militant feminist. In fact, a Women’s Studies graduate, capable of being VERY SERIOUS about vast numbers of issues. Especially regarding women’s bodies. Most especially my own. I took the ownership of my body very seriously. Now, to be fair to my former self, there certainly were “Issues” with a capital “I”; molestation crap, some wretched adolescent encounters with a blonde boy known for his persecution mania and an addiction to inhaled steroids, and on-the-job sexual harassment up the wazoo. So it shouldn’t be a surprise then, that in a fury of eighties-style reclamation zeal, I even tattooed on my wrist for all to see (though in hieroglyphics so they have to ask) the words “to live, ruler of my body, arms embracing”.

Oh to own my body now.

To read the entire article, click on the following: The Bellybutton Wars

Parenting Position: Strong Stomach Required, Apply Within

"Frankly, one of the things I was thinking of least when considering the ultimate compatibility of the wife and I as co-parents, was our level of tolerance for grossness. Certainly there was the obvious; who will be changing the diapers, and will they retch each and every time they do so? Do either parties sneer at spit up, have difficulty with blood or blanche at mucus? But beyond this my mind did not venture.

Of course, we were both looking pretty weak in the stomach department when we were starting out on the parenting voyage eight years ago. My wife, whose true nature will soon be revealed, has always admitted to being one of those people that is easily disgusted. And I was similarly easy prey to my sadistic older sister who would reduce me to tears or worse with the skill of a professional. However, when we were getting down to brass tacks on who would be popping and changing those babies, we knew it would be the one who used to clean a pet store for a living that would be more adept at the job. And ten thousand diapers later, it’s true, it just doesn’t have the same thrill. Any disgust you had in the early days is quickly numbed by fatigue and besides, how dare one be picky after you’ve been through childbirth in all it’s au natural glory."

To read the entire article, click on the following: STRONG STOMACH REQUIRED