You’ve heard of MySpace, right? That huge, frighteningly addictive website that contains excruciating details (many of which are lies, I might add) about millions of people? Well, today I’m inventing the word kidspace. It’s not even remotely related to MySpace. Or perhaps it is, since the wide availability of kidspace opens up countless hours of time dedicated to MySpace…among other pursuits.
Kidspace is the alarming amount of space given to young people who not so long ago were considered to be children. And I’m not talking about literal space here—I’m talking about the amount of time these kids spend unsupervised or, worse, alone in a home or apartment.
I grew up during the end of a different era; my mom stayed home with us when we were tots, and then after we were all safely ensconced in school, my mom picked up part-time work; the stipulation was that the work must always allow her to be home with us after school and in evenings. It was wonderful when I was small, and frankly, it probably kept me out of trouble when I was bigger. We didn’t eat out much but we ate well, we had plenty of acres and hobbies and pets to keep us busy, and I am thankful to this day that my childhood was so idyllic.
Too often, this is not the case nowadays. A lot of folks have lots of new stuff, take big yearly vacations, are involved in more activities than you can count…and their children are first reared by strangers, and then when of age, are abandoned to their own pursuits for many hours each day. Summertime brings this situation to a head. I’ve heard many parents long out loud for the start of school, not so they can send the kids back to classes for education, but so they don’t have to pay the sitter every day. You can see Mom or Dad counting the years until their darlings will be self sufficient enough to stay home unsupervised for hours at a time.
Case in point: We have neighbors, a couple, and they have kids. The youngest is in high school. She’s 16; her boyfriend is in college. Both of her parents work. All day. Every day. This gal’s the only one still living at home. And nearly every morning this summer, her boyfriend’s car has been parked outside the house from 9 or 10 a.m. through lunchtime or beyond. Now, I want to believe the best about this young lady. But I dimly recall being 16, and I clearly recall the goal of just about every boy between the ages of 14 and 35.
No one has ever checked with me about what goes on there during the day, even though they’ve commented more than once about my being “home all day.” I don’t go out of my way to notice, but there’s that car, morning after morning. What’s going on? And I can’t help but wonder: wasn’t there some way to get that girl out of the house? A job? Day camp? Something? And if not, then why isn’t there any level of curiosity from her folks? I’d be curious. It seems they’re more concerned about buying the girl her own car, a plan they’ve shared with us a few times, than they are about whether said car can accommodate a baby seat. They both work, a lot, the mom more than one job… Is it worth it? I’m sure they know more than I do about this young lady, about the situation. Right?
I want to trust, but I don’t want to be a fool. I will do everything in my power to keep my son from ever having an empty house at his disposal when he’s a teen. At least that’s my plan now. Perhaps I, too, will someday be lulled into a comfort zone where I feel perfectly okay about leaving him unwatched, unchecked, for hours each day. I hope not. It’s no accident that America’s insatiable desire for “things,” and how it’s come to outweigh family time, also coincides with the increasing baby boom among our teens. If you take an alcoholic to a bar, he or she is likely to fall off the wagon. If you give a shopaholic a credit card and drop him or her at the mall, that person is likely to spend. And if you leave a teenager alone, free to entertain members of the opposite sex, they are likely to delve deeper than they should into a world that has some pretty heavy consequences. And pregnancy isn’t necessarily the most heavy of those consequences. Think about it.
Too much kidspace is not good. This neighborly example is one of many—and I’d guess a lot of the kids in question are younger than this particular chica. Even if these kids emerge, unscathed by pregnancy or disease, from this premature freedom, I’d venture to guess they are scarred anyway. Kids are not adults. We shouldn’t confuse them with adults. And even when it’s easier for us as parents to grant freedoms, that doesn’t necessarily make it the best thing for those youngsters. I pray that this nation will open its eyes wider and start shouldering the responsibility they accepted when the burden was new and squalling and smelled like baby powder.
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Am I?
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnancy. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
How I came to be diabetic
By the time you've finished reading this post, some of you might think I’ve flipped my lid. Ah well, that’s the beauty of the blog: No one is forcing anyone to read it...or to affirm its contents.
Many of you already know that inside my big file at the doctor’s office, I’ve been diagnosed as prediabetic. It showed up during my pregnancy as gestational diabetes, about two thirds of the way through the experience. It was a pain in the hind end, and I really missed ice cream, cake, real yogurt, chocolate, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and all those other staples of pregnancy…but my GD wasn’t as severe as it could have been; I never had to take insulin, or give myself a shot, and although I still hate to stick myself for blood samples, it really wasn’t so bad. I lost my pregnancy weight pretty quickly, and the diet worked because my dear little boy was just under 7 pounds—not a huge kid at all.
Typically, the condition of gestational diabetes disappears as soon as the child emerges. However, developing GD increases your chances of developing plain ol’ diabetes later in life. In my case, I just felt weird in the months following the birth of Marcus, and even though the doctors felt no need to re-test me when all was said and done, I wanted to have it done just for peace of mind. So I asked them to do so, and they agreed. But just as with many other tests, getting results for the blood test that measures glucose levels can take a few days of waiting.
Now, during those months after I had my son, another drama was unfolding. A gal I know, not really well but semi-well, had discovered that she had cancer. She was going for daily radiation treatments even while I was waiting for my blood test results from the diabetes re-check. She is married, with a nice-sized family. Small children—and since this was a couple years back, the kids were even smaller then. She’s very nice, very sweet, has nothing negative to say about anyone, is a good mom and wife, and is simply a pleasant and friendly woman. She’s a great person.
And I was driving one day with my baby securely in the back seat, running errands, and I was praying. (With my eyes open, of course—don’t worry!) First I was praying for my test results, and I don’t remember the exact words, but you can guess the gist: Lord, please let those results come back negative, please let my paranoia be just that, etc. And then, I was praying for this friend, praying that the treatments worked, praying that she would be healed completely.
And suddenly I was convicted in my heart, because here she was fighting a much bigger fight than me, fighting to stay alive, to stay here on this Earth and raise her family… and I was bemoaning the potential loss of chocolate cake from my daily existence. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it. I stopped praying for a minute to let that sink in. I felt a bit selfish.
And I heard a voice; it said, “Would you be willing to accept diabetes if this woman can be healed?” or something quite close to that. I kid you not, it was as if the voice was in my head. It was not a big, booming voice or a still whisper or anything like that—just a voice, a clear vein of thought. And I knew who was asking, and I knew what my answer should be. I am happy to tell you that my honest, gut response matched the response that in my heart I knew was desirable to the One who was asking: Yes, I answered. Yes, of course, if it means that she is here and well.
And that was that. The light changed or traffic sped up or something took my mind off the exchange—and it had been an exchange, at least to me. Within a few days, I had the call from the doc’s office, asking me to come back in. Yes, I was, indeed, still diabetic, but just barely so. Yes, I still needed to do what I’d done when pregnant, although not to the same extreme. Yes, it could worsen at any time—but thus far, it has not.
The conclusion of the story? My friend finished her treatments, and no, she has not had any recurrences. I pray that will always be the case. Would my answer to that inside-my-head question be the same today? You bet it would.
(I’d love to see you right now, reader, and see whether you are shaking your head and compressing your lips in doubt. All I can say is that if you know me, you also know that I lack imagination and have often been accused of believing thing only when they slap me across the face. If you know me, then you know I couldn’t make this up. Enough said.)
Many of you already know that inside my big file at the doctor’s office, I’ve been diagnosed as prediabetic. It showed up during my pregnancy as gestational diabetes, about two thirds of the way through the experience. It was a pain in the hind end, and I really missed ice cream, cake, real yogurt, chocolate, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and all those other staples of pregnancy…but my GD wasn’t as severe as it could have been; I never had to take insulin, or give myself a shot, and although I still hate to stick myself for blood samples, it really wasn’t so bad. I lost my pregnancy weight pretty quickly, and the diet worked because my dear little boy was just under 7 pounds—not a huge kid at all.
Typically, the condition of gestational diabetes disappears as soon as the child emerges. However, developing GD increases your chances of developing plain ol’ diabetes later in life. In my case, I just felt weird in the months following the birth of Marcus, and even though the doctors felt no need to re-test me when all was said and done, I wanted to have it done just for peace of mind. So I asked them to do so, and they agreed. But just as with many other tests, getting results for the blood test that measures glucose levels can take a few days of waiting.
Now, during those months after I had my son, another drama was unfolding. A gal I know, not really well but semi-well, had discovered that she had cancer. She was going for daily radiation treatments even while I was waiting for my blood test results from the diabetes re-check. She is married, with a nice-sized family. Small children—and since this was a couple years back, the kids were even smaller then. She’s very nice, very sweet, has nothing negative to say about anyone, is a good mom and wife, and is simply a pleasant and friendly woman. She’s a great person.
And I was driving one day with my baby securely in the back seat, running errands, and I was praying. (With my eyes open, of course—don’t worry!) First I was praying for my test results, and I don’t remember the exact words, but you can guess the gist: Lord, please let those results come back negative, please let my paranoia be just that, etc. And then, I was praying for this friend, praying that the treatments worked, praying that she would be healed completely.
And suddenly I was convicted in my heart, because here she was fighting a much bigger fight than me, fighting to stay alive, to stay here on this Earth and raise her family… and I was bemoaning the potential loss of chocolate cake from my daily existence. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it. I stopped praying for a minute to let that sink in. I felt a bit selfish.
And I heard a voice; it said, “Would you be willing to accept diabetes if this woman can be healed?” or something quite close to that. I kid you not, it was as if the voice was in my head. It was not a big, booming voice or a still whisper or anything like that—just a voice, a clear vein of thought. And I knew who was asking, and I knew what my answer should be. I am happy to tell you that my honest, gut response matched the response that in my heart I knew was desirable to the One who was asking: Yes, I answered. Yes, of course, if it means that she is here and well.
And that was that. The light changed or traffic sped up or something took my mind off the exchange—and it had been an exchange, at least to me. Within a few days, I had the call from the doc’s office, asking me to come back in. Yes, I was, indeed, still diabetic, but just barely so. Yes, I still needed to do what I’d done when pregnant, although not to the same extreme. Yes, it could worsen at any time—but thus far, it has not.
The conclusion of the story? My friend finished her treatments, and no, she has not had any recurrences. I pray that will always be the case. Would my answer to that inside-my-head question be the same today? You bet it would.
(I’d love to see you right now, reader, and see whether you are shaking your head and compressing your lips in doubt. All I can say is that if you know me, you also know that I lack imagination and have often been accused of believing thing only when they slap me across the face. If you know me, then you know I couldn’t make this up. Enough said.)
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Burned on my brain
Before I had a child, I didn’t think of kids the same way, especially small ones. (I could spout poetic phrases here about “before I was a mom,” borrowed from several email forwards I’ve received, but I’ll refrain. I don’t want this to be about motherhood.)
So I was saying that before I had my own little person, I just didn’t think much about the human-ness of each and every small child. Especially babies—they’re so unformed much of the time, those new little people, sleeping and crying and pooping and doing it over and over again… Even older, more formed kids were, for many years, sort of a separate animal from me. I never had to consider in depth the fact that they’d grow up. You know that they do, of course they do, but unless you really see it happening every day, it just doesn’t impact you like having your own child in your own life will. I’m babbling. I’ll move on to my point.
I was driving back from church, where I’d dragged my croaking, nauseous self to “sing” (I use the word loosely) in choir. Boy, if I didn’t really enjoy choir, you couldn’t pay me to do it… So I was driving along seedy East Ohio Street on the North Side, and I was stopped at a streetlight in front of a bus kiosk. I’ve passed this kiosk so many times that I usually don’t even glance at it, except to make sure it’s not a current crime scene; but on this morning, it sat empty, and I was reminded of one memorable passing on an evening last winter, and the reminder made me sad.
On that particular evening, the weather was darned cold, it was snowing lightly, and I was sitting at the same darned light, looking around and making sure my doors were locked. I happened to look at the kiosk; there was one young black man standing there, clean cut, dressed for winter except for gloves, blowing on his hands a bit, obviously waiting for a bus. He looked to be 16 or 17, definitely not much older, and he checked his watch and looked up the street, probably hoping to catch sight of the warm bus approaching.
And then, I caught my breath in horror: sitting on the bench next to the boy was an infant carrier. And as I watched, the young man checked the baby inside, hopefully made sure he or she was covered snugly, and looked up the street again.
And then my light turned green, and I hit the accelerator, feeling slightly sick. My God, I was thinking, that boy is a child. How can he be in charge of a baby? Why does this happen? I know why it happens, children have sex and pregnancy occurs, but oh my Lord why why why? How can that kid be a decent parent when he’s still a kid himself? I worry about my own parenting now, and I’m an old woman compared to that youngster. What sort of parent would I have been at that age? Terrible, horrible. selfish and bitter, probably. And I would have had a car to borrow. I wouldn’t have had to catch a bus.
I’m haunted by that kid and his baby, if it even was his child. It’s highly likely it was. You’d be hard pressed to find a 17-year-old who’d catch a bus with someone else’s child on a freezing night. Where are they now? Why was he alone? Has he stumbled along and figured out how to care for a baby, as I did? Is he still involved in the baby’s life? Does he realize now that it can, indeed, happen to him, to anyone? Is he more responsible, or did he just become angry? And the scary thing is that he was only one of many children who are parents—more than I can count in that neighborhood alone. I pray that the baby is safe, well-cared for, loved—that he or she hasn’t become a headline, a tragic lead story on the news. I wouldn’t know if it has; I only saw them for a moment, and the baby was a mere bundle in a carrier. Besides, it’s those stories about harm to children that keep me from watching the news too often.
Each baby, a small person, forming, growing, learning, soaking up everything around him or her. Each child, precious and new and so, so vulnerable. Each one could be my own. Each one is someone’s miracle, or someone’s surprise, or someone’s burden and ticket to early adulthood. Each one will grow up, often in spite of the parenting received. Watching my own son mature means that I’ll never again be able to distance myself from those truths...and I’ll never be free of the unwelcome image of that boy with a baby at the bus stop.
So I was saying that before I had my own little person, I just didn’t think much about the human-ness of each and every small child. Especially babies—they’re so unformed much of the time, those new little people, sleeping and crying and pooping and doing it over and over again… Even older, more formed kids were, for many years, sort of a separate animal from me. I never had to consider in depth the fact that they’d grow up. You know that they do, of course they do, but unless you really see it happening every day, it just doesn’t impact you like having your own child in your own life will. I’m babbling. I’ll move on to my point.
I was driving back from church, where I’d dragged my croaking, nauseous self to “sing” (I use the word loosely) in choir. Boy, if I didn’t really enjoy choir, you couldn’t pay me to do it… So I was driving along seedy East Ohio Street on the North Side, and I was stopped at a streetlight in front of a bus kiosk. I’ve passed this kiosk so many times that I usually don’t even glance at it, except to make sure it’s not a current crime scene; but on this morning, it sat empty, and I was reminded of one memorable passing on an evening last winter, and the reminder made me sad.
On that particular evening, the weather was darned cold, it was snowing lightly, and I was sitting at the same darned light, looking around and making sure my doors were locked. I happened to look at the kiosk; there was one young black man standing there, clean cut, dressed for winter except for gloves, blowing on his hands a bit, obviously waiting for a bus. He looked to be 16 or 17, definitely not much older, and he checked his watch and looked up the street, probably hoping to catch sight of the warm bus approaching.
And then, I caught my breath in horror: sitting on the bench next to the boy was an infant carrier. And as I watched, the young man checked the baby inside, hopefully made sure he or she was covered snugly, and looked up the street again.
And then my light turned green, and I hit the accelerator, feeling slightly sick. My God, I was thinking, that boy is a child. How can he be in charge of a baby? Why does this happen? I know why it happens, children have sex and pregnancy occurs, but oh my Lord why why why? How can that kid be a decent parent when he’s still a kid himself? I worry about my own parenting now, and I’m an old woman compared to that youngster. What sort of parent would I have been at that age? Terrible, horrible. selfish and bitter, probably. And I would have had a car to borrow. I wouldn’t have had to catch a bus.
I’m haunted by that kid and his baby, if it even was his child. It’s highly likely it was. You’d be hard pressed to find a 17-year-old who’d catch a bus with someone else’s child on a freezing night. Where are they now? Why was he alone? Has he stumbled along and figured out how to care for a baby, as I did? Is he still involved in the baby’s life? Does he realize now that it can, indeed, happen to him, to anyone? Is he more responsible, or did he just become angry? And the scary thing is that he was only one of many children who are parents—more than I can count in that neighborhood alone. I pray that the baby is safe, well-cared for, loved—that he or she hasn’t become a headline, a tragic lead story on the news. I wouldn’t know if it has; I only saw them for a moment, and the baby was a mere bundle in a carrier. Besides, it’s those stories about harm to children that keep me from watching the news too often.
Each baby, a small person, forming, growing, learning, soaking up everything around him or her. Each child, precious and new and so, so vulnerable. Each one could be my own. Each one is someone’s miracle, or someone’s surprise, or someone’s burden and ticket to early adulthood. Each one will grow up, often in spite of the parenting received. Watching my own son mature means that I’ll never again be able to distance myself from those truths...and I’ll never be free of the unwelcome image of that boy with a baby at the bus stop.
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