Strollerderby : grief

"Pro-Choice Women Shouldn't Cry Over Miscarriages"

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Just in case your day is going a little too smoothly, let me share an article that will make your blood boil—particularly if you are one of the numerous women who has suffered the pain of a miscarriage and also happens to believe in a woman’s right to choose.

A guest blogger named Gina over at Mom Logic has written a gem of offensive inanity called “Pro-Choice? Quit Crying Over Your Miscarriage!” Here’s how Gina characterizes the pro-choice women who “break down in hysterics” over a miscarriage: “It's a baby when they want it to be, it's a bundle of cells when they don't.”

This is such a shameless confusion of the issue that we need to put Gina’s thinking in perspective with an extreme—but real-life—example: do I believe that a 12-year-old rape victim should be forced to keep her baby? Absolutely not. Would I be heartbroken if I lost the baby I was carrying, whom I had carefully planned my life around for years? Absolutely. These are two entirely different issues. One has to do with my belief in the universal right to reproductive freedom, which is essential to ending the oppression of women; the other has to do with my personal feelings about motherhood.

Many women who would not choose to have an abortion themselves (except perhaps in extreme cases such as rape or incest) respect other women’s right to choose—as do many men, who will never face the decision of whether or not to have an abortion. That’s why it’s called pro-choice, not pro-abortion. By Gina’s line of thinking, no one who wants kids—male or female—should support a woman’s right to choose.

Gina also writes of pro-choice women who have the gall to want kids of their own: “Suddenly the monthly visitor that they were relieved to get when they were 20, now, at 32, plunges them into the depths of depression.” Well, Gina, this is a little something called “family planning”: making life choices that give both you and your future children the best chances for happiness and success—and therefore, bettering the world. How could anyone take issue with women who were responsible enough to avoid pregnancies when they were too young to care for a child? If it weren’t for unplanned pregnancies, there would be no need for abortion in the first place.

Gina claims that she “respects women’s right to choose.” If she truly is pro-choice—which, by her own definition, means believing that all babies are nothing more than “a conglomeration of microscopic cells” until they are out of the womb—then I sincerely hope she never gets pregnant. It’d be pretty difficult to avoid things like smoking and drinking if you have zero emotional attachment to your baby.

Photo: Flickr/Steve Rhodes

Teaching Kids the Right and Wrong Way to Cry

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Like many people my age, I grew up listening to Rosey Grier tell me it was all right to cry. “Crying gets the sad out of you. It’s all right to cry. It might make you feel better,” the football star crooned into my mother’s living room countless times.

Well, as much as I still love Free to Be...You and Me, new research suggests that crying might not actually make you feel better. Common wisdom has long held that “having a good cry” provides a soothing sense of release. But now psychologists are arguing that this belief is, in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy: because people believe crying is good for them, they tend to report positive effects from emotional breakdowns. In fact, as a review paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science argues, crying may be detrimental for some people, leading to more confusion and sadness. Turns out, there’s a "right" way and a "wrong" to cry.

Not surprisingly, the ability to cry in the right or wrong way as an adult has much to do with—you guessed it—how you were raised. (This would be a good time to remind yourself of Jon Stewart’s parenting words of wisdom: “it’s a chance to ruin somebody from scratch.”)

Some therapists believe that children whose parents react attentively and lovingly to their crying find tearful episodes more cathartic later in life. Kids whose tears are scolded or ignored are less likely to find crying soothing as adults; instead of seeking comfort or outside assistance in regulating emotions, they tend to cry as a protest to others. Since “Fix it!” is an impossible request when it comes to grief, this kind of crying only leaves people feeling more bereft.

So, Rosey Grier, looks like you were on to something after all….

Photo: current.com

Jon Stewart on Dashing His Children's Hopes

American Widow Project Offers a Place to Grieve and Heal

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

In honor of this particularly meaningful Veteran's Day, several news outlets have called attention to a very important resource for military widows. The American Widow Project was created by 21-year-old Taryn Davis (pictured), whose husband Michael was killed in Iraq last year.

In the months after her husband's death, Taryn discovered a woeful dearth of resources for dealing with her pain and connecting with other military widows. All that she received from the military upon learning that Michael had been killed were a few small black boxes with Michael's personal belongings and an informative binder. Taryn described the sense of increased isolation and despair she felt as she opened these boxes. "What's foremost in your head is the clothes, because you cannot wait to smell him," she said, "and you open [the black boxes] and it smells like Tide. Everything is sanitized, everything is wiped down." The binder was equally inadequate in helping Taryn deal with this tragedy, offering information on how to arrange a funeral and little else.

So Taryn decided to reach out to other men and women in her position. She made a documentary and created an impressive Web site in which widows and widowers can share their stories and find advice on how to navigate the difficult time ahead, including articles like "Things I Learned to Laugh About Along the Way," "So You're Ready to Date," and moving personal stories of what widows have done with their husband's remaining personal belongings.

I highly recommend this site not only to military families, but to anyone dealing with grief.

Photo: American Widow Project

British Parents Defend Son’s Suicide

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:30:00 GMT

After becoming paralyzed in a rugby training session, Daniel James repeatedly reiterated his desire for death to his friends and family. Last month, the 23-year-old Brit traveled to Switzerland, where he died at an assisted suicide clinic.

It goes without saying that Daniel’s parents, Julie and Mark James, are filled with grief. But they have stated that they respect their son’s decision. They wrote in a statement that his death, though a huge tragedy for those he left behind, was “no doubt a welcome relief from the 'prison' he felt his body had become and the day-to-day fear and loathing of his living existence.”

Helping someone take his life is illegal in Britain; prosecutors are looking into the circumstances of James’ death, but have not yet stated that they will press any charges.

Photo: MSNBC

They Say: Doctors Have Feelings Too

Amy Kuras — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Hmmm, maybe they are not coldblooded perpetrators of the "birth-industrial complex" after all: One in 10 obstetricians have been sufficiently impacted by the stillbirth or neonatal death of a baby they delivered that they have considered giving up their practice, and three quarters said they had profound anxiety, guilt and stress over such negative outcomes for their patients, according to a University of Michigan study of more than 800 OBs.

As somebody whose kids were both birthed via c-section, one emergency, one not, I am not a fan of the Ricki Lake-esque earthy-birthies in the first place. I've got no beef with midwives, homebirth, natural childbirth or anything else that lets someone give birth the way she wants, but I expect the same respect accorded to how I chose to give birth. I'm willing to concede the point that birth doesn't need to be medicalized, but some of us just do feel more comfortable with someone who went to school a lot longer than we did keeping an eye on things.

And aside from the smugness and belittling of other mothers for making dfferent decisions, my other major issue with the earthy-birthy crowd is this reflexive distrust of doctors. I was lucky enough to sort of stumble into a great OB and have heard some awful stories from others who weren't so lucky, but what this story reinforced is that most of them aren't unfeeling scalpel-wielders but people and professionals who want good outcomes for their patients.

SIDS Linked to Serotonin Disruption

Amy Kuras — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:09:00 GMT

Every parent with an infant has experienced this, I think — awakening one morning with a strange feeling, and then suddenly realizing that strange feeling is that of being well rested. Because the baby did not wake you up during the night (and for us nursing moms, that realization is helped along by the presence of what appears to be two very full water balloons on our chests). We leap out of bed and fly to the crib (or, as I and at least a few of my friends cop to doing, make our partners go in first) only to find our baby sleeping soundly, having finally pulled off the Holy Grail of infancy – sleeping through the night.

But for some parents, that mad desperate rush to the side of the crib does not end well. And as much as all the information available about SIDS prevention has saved countless babies' lives, it can add to these families' grief with the idea that perhaps they could have done something to save their baby. But the only known risk factors are babies sleeping on their stomachs and people smoking around the baby – after avoiding that, there's little else a parent can do.

Now, new research is showing that SIDS may be linked to an imbalance of serotonin, the chemical most people associate with depression. However, serotonin regulates body temperature, breathing, arousal from sleep, and heart rate, among other functions – all issues that have been implicated in SIDS.

Researchers found that mice genetically engineered to have low levels of serotonin would experience sudden drops in heart rate and breathing, which resulted in death either immediately or sometime thereafter.

The hope is that the findings could someday lead to a test to detect risk of SIDS in newborns. And it should certainly bring a small measure of comfort to parents who may be wondering if they could have done anything to prevent their child's tragic death.

Empty Nest Syndrome Strikes Some Parents Early

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Sarah Ebner experienced Empty Nest Syndrome when her son was only 2 1/2. According to some experts it is possible to experience some version of Empty Nest Syndrome (the experience of loss and grief after a child leaves home) at previously unrecognized phases of development such as your youngest leaving for preschool, or beginning Kindergarten...

Ms. Ebner explains that she didn't feel similarly distressed when her oldest started Kindergarten because she still had a baby at home. It wasn't until the baby was old enough to engage in outside activities that she felt the stirrings of Empty Nest Syndrome.

I wonder if there's a counterpart syndrome: Empty Nest Envy? When I see the well-tanned exercised and well-rested people in their 50s and 60s (the ones who stop my little goslings for a kiss or pinch in the store), I daydream about the days of pottery and flower tending.

On the other hand, the longing those people have for my life is instructive.

[Photo: Daily Telegraph]

Talking To Kids About 9-11 and Other Topics We Wish They Didn't Have To Know About

Kelly Mills — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:02:00 GMT

It is, of course, 9/11. I wish I had seen this newsletter from Sesame Workshop a while ago. Because my daughter, who was an infant at the time of the attacks, is now six, and some of the events of that day have entered her consciousness. She watched an episode of Reading Rainbow where kids sent supplies to the students at a school near the twin towers, and somehow she got the idea that the school was the target of bombing. And how do you correct this? "No, honey, people crashed planes into these other buildings." Then she asks, "Were any kids killed?" And worse, "Why did they do that?"

The newsletter, which came out a year after the attacks, has tips for talking to kids about the tragedy, and top of the list is to listen to your kids. Also right up there is to limit media exposure. It's a good reminder, because when we adults can hardly bear something, it's likely kids are going to fare far worse. The newsletter also has tips for different age groups, and even some more general resources for helping children with trauma and grief. Take care.