A Musing Maralee

February 15, 2022
by Maralee
0 comments

Hey Naomi Campbell, My Adopted Kids Are “My” Children

Dear Ms. Campbell,

While the two of us couldn’t seem to have more vastly different lives (you’re a famous model and mom of one, I’m a mom of 8 who just finished eating a Valentine Ding Dong treat she pilfered from her kids’ stash) we do have something in common. We’re both older women parenting babies. We’re about a decade apart, but I feel like we belong to the same club. We’re more seasoned, more wise, more aware of our resources and we want to enjoy every minute with our babies since we know we may not have as many years together as women who added to their family in their twenties.

I read an interview you did as part of appearing on the cover of “Vogue” with your beautiful daughter, but one part of the interview gave me pause. Apparently you were private about your journey to motherhood (which seems to be a rarity these days). Maybe because you were so quiet, people have assumed you adopted your daughter. In refuting that assumption, you said the child “isn’t adopted” and added, “she’s my child.”

I take issue with that language choice.

Most of my kids came to me through adoption. One international adoption, four adoptions through foster care and one precious foster baby whose adoption process is just beginning. I did not conceive them, did not grow their bodies, did not give birth to them, and yet I can promise you that each one is fully “my child.”

I’m the one they turn to when they have a bad dream. I’m the one who makes their dinner and kisses their scratches and helps with math homework (even though I LOATHE math homework). I’m also the one who has answered their tough questions about their birth families. I’ve learned to do hair that’s so different from mine. I’ve invested hours and hours in education about how to be the parent they need to help them navigate the trauma of adoption, or deal with their history, or their cultural identity. While we are both older parents with a little one in our home, I’m dealing with an extra layer of parenting demands. And do you know why I do that happily and with great tenacity?

Because these kids are MY children. They are my responsibility. They are my joy.

And yet, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in becoming a parent through adoption, it’s that my kids are never really “mine” to own. Not my foster kids, not my adopted kids and not my biological kids. They are gifted to me for a short time to provide them with nurture and structure to help them become who they were meant to be. My hope is that in doing this mothering well, they will someday choose me after they no longer need me to help them navigate their daily lives. I’m doing my best to steward their lives well because they aren’t mine to own. They are mine to love and treasure and to release into the world.

Continue Reading →

February 11, 2022
by Maralee
0 comments

Stop Beating Yourself Up About Movie Nights

I was smoothing down my seven-year-old’s hair the other night while we sat next to each other on the couch. He was snuggled up next to me and it occurred to me how rare these moments feel as he’s getting older and more independent. As we watched the Mandalorian be reunited with Baby Grogu, my son turned his face towards me to share a big smile.

In that moment I realized that I really like our movie nights.

For such a long time as a parent I have felt guilty about the time we spend watching TV. I’m rotting their brains and shouldn’t we be doing something more active and why aren’t we using more of the board games we have and maybe we should be asking these kids more about their deep feelings instead of staring at a screen. But I’m just over being worried about all that.

My kids trust me. They feel safe and loved in our home. They know it’s okay for them to be vulnerable. And some of those moments have developed during our family movie nights.

I’ve watched Star Wars movies turn into long games of Star Wars creative play the next day. Documentaries with my older kids have started insightful conversations about problems in the world. Watching the Olympics together creates a drive to practice and work hard at their own athletic dreams. Movies with adoption storylines become a great vehicle for opening the door to the thoughts my kids are having about their own adoptions. These movies aren’t isolated or isolating moments, but a time we are choosing to be together, sharing an experience.

My kids watched me sob actual tears while watching “Encanto” as I dealt with my own feelings about handling the pressure in my life. It normalized the real expression of emotions when we’re moved by something. I want them to know it’s okay to have those strong feelings and that finding safe and healthy ways to let them out is so much better than swallowing them back. Did I cry my face off when IG-88 literally melted in an act of self-sacrifice because of his programing to protect The Child? Yes. Because of course I felt a deep sense of identification with the lengths we’ll go to to protect our kids. Don’t get me started about the rush of FEELINGS just about anytime Matthew Cuthbert opened his mouth in the 1985 Anne of Green Gables series. I’ve noticed my kids will sense the emotion of a scene and then look to me to see if I’m crying. They know I have a sensitivity to certain themes (motherhood and adoption especially) even though in my daily life I am not a very emotional person. Family movie nights are not just staring blankly at a screen, but allowing ourselves to be impacted by storytelling and sharing that impact together.

This gets harder to do as my kids get older and their tastes become more diverse. Not everybody wants to watch the same thing at the same time. But when we can find a winner, it creates a family bond over the shared enjoyment of something special. My older kids loved being present while the fourth grader was watching his first Spiderman movie. They are creating their own bonds together as they talk about fan theories and plot holes.

Continue Reading →

January 26, 2022
by Maralee
0 comments

I’m a Pandemic Parent and I’m Mostly Doing Fine

I can’t tell you how many of the same headline I’ve seen over the past few weeks. “Pandemic Parents are on the Brink”, “Parents are Losing it”, “Parents Can’t Keep Going”, etc. I even saw a story about a group of moms getting together in an empty field just to scream into the void. I think I can understand that instinct even before Covid. Parenting can be exhausting on the best of days and these have not been the best of days.

But I’m doing okay.

I can’t totally relate to these parents who seem to be on the edge of losing their sanity at worst or at the very least they seem to have lost the joy of parenting. I think there are a lot of very real factors that are impacting parents. Unreliable childcare, uncertain school plans, rules that seem to be constantly changing, fears about the health and safety of our children– it’s a lot.

I think the reason I’m not losing my mind is because I had to make peace with a lot of uncertainty many years ago. I can’t control my life. I can’t control the health and safety of my kids. Becoming a parent through adoption and providing care for kids from trauma for the last 19 years means I’ve had to let go of a lot of the traditional expectations about what motherhood and family look like. There are times I feel much more like a passenger than a driver through this whole parenting experience. I think that’s been great preparation for what it’s like to raise kids through Covid.

And I think some of us have more of a personal bent towards not getting too worked up about things. Maybe that’s something that happens when you have a large family, but I know I only have the energy for a certain amount of stress and drama in my daily life. I can’t hold on to tension over everything. There’s a lot I’ve weathered over the years and we’ve mostly been fine.

Then I think about the new moms. The moms who have babies just like my littlest girls who joined our family in the midst of hospital protocols that would only allow one of us to visit them at a time. Masks in the hospital. Masks in the courtroom. Masks at team meetings and early intervention services appointments. Temperature checks everywhere and anxiety hanging thick in the air. What if this bizarre experience of motherhood wasn’t just an odd turn on my journey, but my ONLY frame of reference for parenting? Then I understand a little more why parents are struggling.

This has once again made me realize the value of intergenerational and diverse friendships and the unique loss of community that has happened right at a time when we need it most. Moms who are scared for their kids need moms who have learned to live with this kind of fear on a daily basis as they navigate life as a parent to a child with special needs. I need grandmothers around me who lived through fears about polio. I need to know there are women who have suffered and have still found beauty and redemption. I need to see women who have found themselves in chaos and have managed to create order. I need to know that even in the midst of isolation, I am not alone.

Continue Reading →

January 20, 2022
by Maralee
0 comments

How to Make Small Talk with a Large Family Mom

I had an awkward interaction with someone the other day. It wasn’t the first time. It certainly won’t be the last. When people see a large family, it’s kind of tough not to comment on it. In the immortal words of Jim Gaffigan, “Big families are like waterbed stores. They used to be everywhere, now they’re just weird.”

The comments I get are rarely overly positive or explicitly negative. I think they come from a place of bewilderment or confusion.

How do you do it?

You sure have your hands full.

How do you stay sane with so many kids?

You really look busy.

I’d hate to have your grocery bill.

I bet you haven’t had a good night of sleep in a decade.

I go crazy with just my two kids, I don’t know how you manage.

In my more gracious moments, I see something sweet in some of these comments. People are imagining themselves in my shoes. That’s kind. They see what I’m doing and they wonder how I do it. Sometimes that comes with a hint of confusion, sometimes with admiration. Overall, I love that people WANT to talk to me. I know it can be tough to approach someone and start a conversation, especially when that someone is flanked by moody teens, a crabby infant and everything in between.

So if you’re looking for how to start a conversation with a mom in a large family, I’m going to give you some pointers and I want you to know why it matters.

When that person walked away after our awkward interaction, my son leaned over to me and said, “I hate that. I hate when people make it seem like we’re weird.” While I can feel gracious about these conversations, the implication is that my kids are a burden to me. My kids make my life hard. We are an anomaly. There’s confusion about why we would want them or do this to ourselves. As a family obviously formed by adoption, that can add to the narrative my kids already struggle with about their value. (We don’t get the “You know what causes that” conversation, because the answer would be paperwork, court, and a lot of home studies) I don’t think that’s what anyone intends to communicate, but it is definitely how my kids hear these conversations. And they hear them a lot.

I would encourage you to not go for the low hanging fruit. Just because a family is large, that doesn’t mean the thing that mom most wants to talk about is how large her family is. If you’re wanting to make small talk, you can ask how her week went. You can tell her her kids look adorable today. You can ask if she’s seen any good movies or read a good book recently. I know it seems crazy, but we do have time in our lives for things other than making giant pots of spaghetti and doing that eighth load of laundry. You can ask how school is going this year or if she’s already thinking about planning a spring garden, or how her extended family is doing. If you feel compelled to comment on the fact that this is a large family, try saying something complimentary.

Continue Reading →

January 12, 2022
by Maralee
0 comments

Losing The Doctor That Knew My Baby Before I Did

Our family is going through an unexpected loss. Our pediatrician passed away. When I told my kids, my daughter said, “And wasn’t she your friend too?” She was. Not in the way my daughter thought. I didn’t know her personally or socially, but we had developed a friendship over the 13 years our family has been seeing her. 8 kids in 13 years means lots of doctor appointments and almost all of them were with her.

As we grieve this loss, I’m reminded of what made her special. First of all, she met one of my kids before I did. She was in the hospital when he was born and she expressed an interest in being his doctor. In spite of his complicated medical needs at the time. In spite of his insurance status. In spite of the hassle of caring for a child in state custody. She wanted to be his doctor.

It wasn’t until later that I realized what a big deal that was. It can be quite difficult to find a pediatrician that is willing to take foster kids. I’m sure most of that is because of Medicaid reimbursement rates, but I think the ways that foster care complicates every aspect of a child’s life, it also complicates the job of their doctor. There was extra documentation she had to do, extra phone calls and appointments to make sure we were doing everything we needed to do, and I’ll never forget the few appointments when the biological family attended with me.

Our pediatrician was so good about letting those parents be the expert in the child’s needs. She wasn’t patronizing. She wasn’t shaming. She asked questions and gave them good information. She figured out how to do that difficult dance we all do in foster care– respecting and supporting the parents while also being sure the child’s needs are centered.

I will be honest that there were times I thought about finding a new doctor for our family. We became her patients because she had a soft spot for our first foster child, but it wasn’t always a perfect personality match. But just a few weeks ago I was talking to my husband about how thankful I was that we stuck it out. I am a different parent than I was 13 years ago. I’m a better, more knowledgeable, more experienced parent. Part of that has been because of the good professionals we’ve had around us. As much as we want to pretend that every mother has perfect instincts and knows exactly what she needs to know to mother her children, that’s not true. We make mistakes and ideally we become better through the process. I think the same is true of the professionals we work with. I noticed over the years that our dynamics changed. She listened to how serious we thought the problem was. She was willing to wait when waiting seemed prudent. And I learned to ask the right questions and how to give her the information she needed to help us make decisions. Over the years we learned to trust each other. That’s not something you can just recreate.

Continue Reading →

December 16, 2021
by Maralee
0 comments

I Think I Did Nothing Today

Sometimes I lay in bed at the end of the day and ask myself the inevitable Question of The Night: What did you do today? What did you accomplish? Sometimes it makes me want to cry. I don’t have a good answer. I draw a total blank. What did I do today? What can I point to as something of value? I lay there totally exhausted, totally touched-out, I don’t even have any words left to try and have an adult conversation with my husband, I can only eat the bowl of ice-cream propped in front of me while I scroll houses on Zillow, imagining maybe there’s a home or a yard that would magically stay cleaner or keep my kids from fighting. I want an external solution to this internal problem. And the problem isn’t my kids.

It’s my own belief that I should have DONE SOMETHING today. Something besides getting that one errant bathtub toy back to its home every time I kept finding it in the hall. Something besides shutting THE SAME CABINET fifteen times because the baby likes to pull out the cereal boxes whenever my back is turned. Something besides rattling off ten different disjointed text messages to friends to try and keep some kind of relational connection going.

Because in my mind none of that “counts.” It isn’t really meaningful. It’s nothing worthy of attention or admiration or respect.

I know there are a million pep talks I should give myself (and you) right now about the worthiness of this mothering we’re doing. It matters. I fully believe that or I would have just outsourced it or not embarked on this journey at all. I think raising humans is one of the most important jobs that exists in the world, it’s just also one of the most mindless, repetitive and oddly dehumanizing ones when you’re parenting a very smallish person. In what other job would people just cry at me if I didn’t immediately meet their needs or accidentally scratch me in the face in a gesture of pure exuberance gone wrong, or throw the meal I served them on the ground, or scream when I put them down and then accidentally kick me in the gut when I pick them up? At some point it becomes easy to compartmentalize and stop being a person and just start being a caregiver.

Continue Reading →

December 2, 2021
by Maralee
0 comments

Adoption is Not the Happy Ending. It’s the Beginning.

*These were my remarks to honor the Nebraska Governor’s proclamation of National Adoption Awareness Month at our state capital.*

When we first pursued adoption, it was because we wanted to be parents and that was not working out in the way that it typically does. During that time we were working in a group home with teenage boys that we weren’t able to provide permanency for because they were not legally adoptable. Through that experience we knew we could love children that weren’t biologically ours and we knew we were passionate about being parents. Even when the process was difficult, that driving desire to be able to offer love and home and family kept us going.

So about 17 years ago we began the international adoption process that lead us to our oldest son and then we became licensed foster parents which eventually allowed us to adopt four more children and we’re currently providing foster care for a sibling of our daughters’. Along with our two biological children, that means we are a family of eight. This wasn’t our plan, but it’s so much better than what we ever dreamed for our family.

When we entered the adoption world, we were excited to become parents, but like every first time mom and dad, we were unaware of how much it would change our world. The ways parenthood changed us were sometimes familiar and expected. We learned how our child liked to be fed and what his favorite stuffed animal was and which lullabies were most soothing. But we have also been uniquely shaped by parenthood through adoption in less familiar ways. The act of adoption is a moment that happens one time before a judge when we become family- before the law, before God and through our deep love for each other we make a lifelong commitment. But that one moment has shaped so much of who our family has become. We’ve learned what it means to be trauma informed parents. We’ve learned how to answer the hard questions our kids ask, but most of all, we’ve learned how to make space.

Continue Reading →

September 10, 2021
by Maralee
2 Comments

14 Things I’ve Learned in 14 Years of Parenting

Today marks fourteen years that I’ve been a mother (plus the four before that where I was a house mom in a group home, but I digress). 7 kids: 5 adopted, 2 biological. Ages 14 to 1. I’ve learned a few things over the years and I want to quickly jot them down before I forget them in the fog of who needs to be picked up from cross country and who needs me to get poster board for their Star of the Week display next week. So here they are, in no particular order:

-Food fixes a lot. If people are grumpy, feeding them can go along way. If you are grumpy, take a minute and feed yourself. Don’t underestimate the impact of a warm meal eaten in silence. If you need to do that in the bathroom while the chaos rages outside every once-in-a-while, go for it.

-Don’t rescue your kids. They are capable of more than you think they are. Let them try some solutions before you jump in. Ask them how they would like you to help if they actually need help.

-Routine is your best friend. So many problems are avoided when you can find a rhythm and stick with it. When you do laundry on the same day, clean the house on the same night, go to church every Sunday and eat cereal for breakfast every Saturday morning, you deal with a lot less uprisings because kids are just used to it. Let your habits do the work for you so you don’t have to re-litigate every family decision.

-Physical affection matters. It’s hard to give affection to older kids, but they still need it. So you have to get creative. Do their hair, cook right next to each other, help them apply lotion, do a face mask, give a shoulder rub. We all need to know we’re loved and touch matters even during the awkward years.

–Don’t take it so personally. By “it” I mean pretty much every aspect of parenting. The tears probably aren’t about you even when you think they are, the anger isn’t about you, the frustration isn’t about you, the tantrum isn’t about you. It’s hard being a kid when you can’t control your life and Mom is a really easy person to take that out on. If Mom can recognize that and not feel so personally offended about it all, that makes life easier for everyone. I choose to believe the Mother’s Day cards they give me are personally about me and everything else is probably not.

-Tell your kids you like them. Love is a given. We have to love our kids. Our kids know this. It might actually be more important that they know we like them. We like their quirks and their talents and their groggy morning faces and that weird noise they make when they see a cute dog. When they don’t seem likable, remind yourself of all the things you like. Fake it until you feel it.

Continue Reading →

September 8, 2021
by Maralee
0 comments

Radio Interview on Letting Your Kids Fail

I told my son yesterday that my biggest goal in parenting is not for him to have the best childhood, but for him to grow into the best adult. Obviously, that’s an oversimplification. I’d love it for him to have a wonderful childhood and I also don’t assume he needs to be the “best” adult to be loved and worthy. But in the moment where he was complaining about what I wasn’t letting him do that “ALL” his friends get to do, I wanted him to know why there are times I don’t make the same decisions he thinks other parents are making. I’m doing this all with the end in mind.

That’s a phrase I learned from my friend and longtime mentor, Stan Parker. So I’m glad we got to have this conversation about how we can encourage kids to make mistakes, take risks and learn to cope with failure. It’s not because failure is fun in the moment. It’s because we’re trying to help them learn how to become successful adults.

You can listen to our interview below and you can read all the things I thought about after the interview underneath.

I’d love to hear how you encourage safe mistakes for your kids too!

Continue Reading →

August 25, 2021
by Maralee
0 comments

I Want My Body Back

It took me about ten minutes to walk a few feet today. I’m not exaggerating. There was a toy in the baby’s room that belonged in the bathtub. I put the baby down so I could pick up the toy and she immediately pulled herself up to standing by holding onto the edge of my shorts. She then decided to practice her newfound walking skills by hanging onto my shorts and walking behind/beside/in front of me. In the process, she gave me some pretty decent scratches with her baby nails, got mad that I wasn’t walking the exact pace she wanted to walk, tried to bend down to pick up other toys, and fell over several times. You can see why a task that normally would have taken me about 30 seconds took me about ten minutes.

I hate to admit it, but I forgot how exhausting this stage of having a little one can be.

There were five years between the last baby and this one. Everyone was potty-trained. Everyone was sleeping through the night. It had been a long time since I had to zip up a jacket and even shoe tying wasn’t always the constant chore it used to be when none of my kids were capable of doing it themselves. But we are back to the baby stage and I am back to having my world revolve around a messy, noisy, inefficient tiny person that I love with incredible fierceness.

Ah, inefficiency, my old nemesis. I want so badly to run around this house and quickly tidy up, quickly load the dishwasher, quickly write a few emails. Nothing happens quickly anymore. Because my body doesn’t belong to me. There is a little person who wants to sit in my lap and no coherent email has ever been written in the history of humanity while a squirmy 12-month-old was sitting in your lap. I can’t quickly load the dishwasher because someone is trying to climb inside it or grab the plates out of it. As much as these feel like time wasting moments or scheduling frustrations, I find that most of all, they make me feel frustrated with my body. I just can’t physically do what my mind tells me I need to get done.

Each stage of motherhood is hard in its own way, but the toll motherhood takes on your body in those early years is something unique (and I’m not even going to address the whole pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding process). Yes, the middle school years are tough. Yes, tween and teen hormones are ridiculous. But those kids don’t typically pull your hair on accident or start crying in the middle of the night until you meet their needs, or rub banana into your neck. Blessedly, you do get your body back (your sleep routines, your bathroom privacy, your personal space boundaries) at some point, even if your mind has to become more and more focused on helping kids navigate harder choices and thornier problems. Each mom will feel these struggles differently, but for some of us, having our bodily autonomy infringed upon constantly is a very difficult experience. I don’t have any trauma triggers in this area, I’m just a person who likes personal space boundaries and dislikes being accidentally head-butted. Call me crazy, I guess.

Continue Reading →