Mother's Day Interview with Suzi Banks Baum

Again Ars Poetica

With your ear

to your heart thoughts

listen.

- Janet Cady Hutchinson

This is the second in a series of interviews that Musemother is undertaking with some amazing creative women.  I'm especially proud to post this interview in the week coming up to Mother's Day, because I think women artists who are mothers have a different set of challenges, and need the encouragement and help of other artists even more. Enjoy meeting Suzi Banks Baum, Artist, Author, Blogger and Full Time Mom!

Musemother: Tell me how the Laundry Line Divine and Out of the Mouths of Babes projects got started. And what those titles mean also.

SBB: Laundry Line Divine is the title of my blog site and my book, fully named Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers.  All this got started in January of 2007, when three opportunities came my way and I said ‘yes’ to them all. You should know a few things about me, before I tell you this story. One- up until that point, I was a full time Mom for thirteeen years, having happily set aside my theatre career to focus on mothering.  Two- though I had kept a journal from the time I was 14 and written daily, I did not consider myself a writer. I was, at that point, a woman who was a mother who sought, without much conscious intention, to be creative in every way I could, while raising my kids.

On the weekend  in January in which we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., in the Berkshires frigid cold, I began a 6-month-writing course called “Journey Women: Transformation through Writing”.  I showed up for the course not expecting anything other than learning how to deepen my writing practice and maybe make some friends that I’d meet with on Saturdays. Then, on the Sunday of that weekend, I attended my friend Lydia’s graduation from Mama Gena’s School of the Womanly Arts in New York City. All the way in to New York on the Metro North train ride, I wrote, answering a prompt that had been asked in my Saturday writing workshop.  It had to do with looking at projects of mine of no particular sort, just things I had started and maybe finished and to consider the people who had provided me with necessary ingredients.

I had this list in my mind as I attended the raucously elegant graduation of 175 women who had just completed a 4-month course of study in something I had not much appreciation of at the time: Pleasure. What I witnessed that afternoon challenged me to escape the ballroom full of pink feathers, flowing tears on smiling faces and dancing. But, what I witnessed also called me to stay, to see if there was some of that joy for me in the world. I had no idea what I was in for. Both my Journey Women writing course and Mastery with the SWA opened up vistas within and around me that I had never lifted my head to see.

The third opportunity came in the art class I was in the following Friday. My teacher Karen Arp-Sandel, who is also a close friend of mine, passed my studio table as I was carefully cutting up an image of a knitted quilt with which to make a collage. She asked me if I’d consider engaging in a mail art correspondence. Another ‘yes’ from me, and to this day, over five years later, we are deeply caught in conversation about our lives as women, mothers and artists through the United States Postal Service. We call this body of work, the workshops we lead, exhibits, artist talks and merchandise, FeMail.

As I reflect on that period of time in 2007, my writing mentor Jan Lawry and my friends Lydia and Karen each provided me with the jet fuel for a renovation of my life that required no other tools than things I already had at hand. The ingredients that they supplied me with allowed me to enter in to my own garden of my soul- a secret bower that I had been tending without knowing it. It was and is the haven of my own Muse, my creative nest that I mistakenly thought I had abandoned when I left acting for mothering, but in fact, this fertile bed of inspiration had been daily nursed by my inner gardener while my exterior self had embarked on my mothering career–having two healthy children and living through the loss of two pregnancies. 

What I discovered in January 2007 and have been pursuing ever since, is the access point to my own joy, to the timbre and depth of my authentic voice, to the ownership and operation of my creativity in the myriad ways I express myself in this world. Whether I am at the kitchen sink simmering in anger over the actions of my teen ager or snuggling that same lanky kid in my arms, or if I am speaking on stage with the hot Fresnel lights on my cheeks or scribbling frantically to capture my quickly fleeing dream, whether I am sticky with gel medium slicking on a transfer to a mixed media composition or teaching women how to make packing tape transfers, or shaking heavy heads of amaranth letting loose a rain shower of tiny black seeds over the third graders I am gardening with or turning over my compost heap to keep myself from losing my temper with my own tired kids–I have embraced the knowledge that I am a brilliant articulation of the Divine. And, that I am, with proper care and feeding, capable of greatness.

And, I think you are too. There is room in this world for all of us to shine. The world requires it of us.

So, returning to your question, LLD and ‘Out’ emerged as I developed my non-fiction book proposal. When I came to the marketing section of that proposal, I really did not know how to answer the question: “How and where are you out in the world with your work?” Aside from school newsletters, I am an unpublished author. My theatre career has long been on hold and unless you consider reading the lessons in church on Sunday a performance, then, no, I have not been in front of an audience with my work in years.

Well. I have changed that. ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’ and the accompanying blog series running at www.outofthemouthsofbabes.org has given me the pleasure of reading my work in public and sharing the stage with other authors I admire who, like me, are mothers. The blog series has widened the geographic reach of this project, involving over 25 authors from across the United States. As my Mom has said about me for years, “Suzi plays well with others”. I have created an event that can be hosted in other cities, with new authors joining me to share writing “from the soul of the mother” and participate in a facilitated discussion of the power of creativity and mothering.

I came to call my first book “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” because it was at the laundry line where I realized that this quotidian act could become a communion with my Muse if I invite her. ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ came to be because I am interested in mothers as women. I want to take a fresh look at what it is to be a feminine presence today. I loved the double play the title suggests, of stories coming from women who at times think of themselves as babes, who may at times share stories of their own babes, and who are likely to be caught reading to those babes on a nightly basis. I love the playfulness of this title. So much discussion of mothering is about how hard it is. I have room for that in this series, but I encourage women to let their expression begin to make themselves whole. To do as Virginia Wolf says:

“It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power 

to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to 

put the severed parts together. Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me.”

I am still working on the non-fiction book proposal because I want to build my author platform. I am still a full time Mom who is a blogger, artist, author and actress, but I am all these things to a greater degree because I have found my VOICE by putting the pieces of my life together through writing and making art.

Musemother: What do you believe about the connection between women, creativity and spirituality? i.e. Is there a feminine spirituality?

SBB: Oh my gosh, Jenn. This is a great question. I will try to answer it briefly. It is my fervent belief that creativity remembers a woman to her soul.

Through consciously engaging in her daily life, appreciating the myriad of creative acts every single woman makes every day, simply because women are in every way- creative- this awareness builds the listening muscles so we can each hear what our authentic selves are calling for. By then taking the steps to engage artistically, in small ordinary ways or in bigger ways, women become familiar with their authentic voice and from that point, every decision is made in collaboration with her soul. Happiness becomes familiar ground, Inspiration flows and your ideas percolate, giving you suggestions of other things that will create that kind of joy and good feeling.

The faith practices I have studied all suggest that the collaboration of your inner and outer world is where the Divine manifests in our daily life. When you bring your ideas in to the world through pen or paint or frosting on a cake, you begin to make space for more inspiration. You open the door to possibilities you would never have encountered had you not made the way clear. My Mom used to share this aphorism “Make way and the path opens”. I believe that the appreciation of these ordinary acts of creativity make the way for bigger acts of creativity.

As to a ‘feminine spirituality’- I don’t see how there cannot be. We hold within our bodies the blueprint for the future of our planet. We are ultimately creative. And in this potential to create life, we collaborate with the Divine. However you name the Divine, whether you attribute a gender to this holy presence, it exists for us all here. If you consider the debacle of the Patriarchy over the last 5000 years and the way women have been silenced from speaking their experience of God, it is not surprising that some of us might feel timid to speak of this topic. We might be burned at the stake, as women, very close to where I am sitting right now, were, simply for expressing and carrying out their innate experience of God.

Musemother: Creative women who are mothers may feel like they need a wife or a full-time househusband to take care of the kids before they can get any creative work done. How do you manage the split between mothering and your creative work, ie collage, art, poetry? Note: for me it was sometimes a huge conflict – the desire and need for solitude, to create without distraction and interruption, to get away from the domestic sphere and hear myself think versus the need to be there for my kids at 3:30, shut everything off and forget about my projects until the next day when they were back at school.

SBB: Oh Jennifer, here again, I wish we were closer and in person to talk this all over. Yes. I’d love a househusband. I’d love a wife! But, in reality, I am here, hauling up rolls of toilet paper from the basement and folding wash and straining against all that keeps me from my pen or paper. But here, in this place of constriction, is exactly where Laundry Line Divine was born. When I began to embrace the mundane acts of mothering as some of the expressions of my soul, I began to see even hanging the wash as an opportunity to see grace, to be inspired, to exert my love upon my family in ways that they may never be aware of, but, still, I could affect them by loving what I was doing.

Surely, loving the wash does not make it go by any faster or does not cook dinner-, which, of all tasks, is the one I find the most lamentable. My friend Janet likes to say “Dinner? We had dinner last night.” (As in, do we have to do that again?) Shifting my perspective on these daily tasks from drudgery to opportunity gets rid of my anger about being the one left to do them. This shift really put me on the spot to ask for help from my real life husband who wants to support me living to my fullest potential. So, he is the one who takes over every family task on Thursdays, my art day. He drives the kids where they need to go, answers the phone if they call, makes dinner and counsels them when they need an ear while my door is closed to the world. I admit there have been a few exceptions to the sanctity of these art days. And times when it is inconvenient. We have learned to live with that discomfort. Jonathan is dedicated to supporting me, as I have been dedicated to supporting him. We work it out.

I still still still get frustrated. I always want, need, require more time. But, I have learned what minimum levels of sustenance I need. I meditate and write every day. I spend a little time in my collage-a-day practice. I take a class once a week. I take weekend retreats once a season. But, in the day to day, balancing community participation, child care and feeding, family demands is a juggling act that I just get better and better at, with regular moments when it all falls to the ground in a clattering mess.

My children have learned to respect my need to work. By my being clear about my work time away from them, they are learning a level of independence. I am not as involved in their school lives or our community as I was before I engaged in writing Laundry Line Divine and blogging. I say, as involved, because I am still doing things outside my home that are not work related, but service, but not at all to the crazy assed degree I used to be. I must tell you in retrospect, those years of massive time spent volunteering helped me see myself as confident. I learned and honed leadership skills that help me do my work today. And, I had an impact on my children’s schooling that has made a lasting impression on them. I am so glad I had the chance to do that.

What would be enough, I’d like to know. Some days I wish that I just didn’t feel hurried all the time, always thinking that I could be doing 6 things at a time, all equally important. I write about what I call ‘Solomon Moments’ when I have to choose between two perfectly perfect things and in choosing one, I am really not doing a service to either. Both choices call me. Having time to write or watching my daughter run lacrosse both feel vitally important to me. 

This is where I remember what the fascinating children’s author Katherine Paterson said:

“As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the every persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.”

Ó Suzi Banks Baum  May 2, 2012

Suzi Banks Baum’s favorite roles in her 53-year career as a woman have been mother and rat.  She took up the former 17 years ago, upon the birth of her son, and the latter in 1965 at Potawatomie Park in Chicago, in the after-school theatre program.  Suzi actively blogs at laundrylinedivine.com where she writes about seeing and celebrating the sacred in everyday life. Her upcoming book, “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” recounts the wild tale of her adventures raising herself while raising her children. Her standing room only event for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’ premiered her work on mothering and creativity. Suzi is an actress, artist, gardener and good friend. Suzi lives with her husband and two teenagers in Great Barrington, MA.

Favorite Frames of 'Out of the Mouths of Babes' at  www.laundrylinedivine.com

Mothering and Creativity blog series at  www.outofthemouthsofbabes.org

FeMail fun at www.femailart.com

Follow Suzi at: facebook.com/LaundryLineDivine or facebook.com/femailart@laundrylinediv


Part Two to be posted in the week of May 20, 2012.

Mother Daughter Stuff

Ok usually it's me being impatient with my 17 yr old girl, but this week my husband hit his limit.

"I told her she could have the money from all those beer bottles in the garage if she took them back....it's been 3 weeks!"

"I'm going to sell that 2nd-hand mini we bought her - she never drives it!" (battery went dead as it sat in the driveway for 2 months)

He took her driving one day a few weeks ago, and apparently grew impatient (understatement) when she tried to shift into 5th gear (it's a standard) and ground the gears instead....on the highway.

So a few meltdowns later, and many stalls at busy intersections, with cars are beeping their horns and yelling at the poor girl, (a good samaritan helped push the car off the road and got it started for her), she was petrified of driving the 'new' car.

Yesterday, I insisted we take the mini to the physiotherapist appointment she had. She was doing great at all the stop signs, starting it with hardly a catch, until we got to a busier street with traffic lights. Stopped at a red light, we went through 2 more red lights until she could get it going again, and then we whipped into a parking lot while she had melt down # 35.

I took over the wheel, and started noticing what I was doing with the clutch, how fast the engine was revving when I put my foot on the gas, the exact sequence of events, so I could explain it to her. She was still too shaken to drive. But she listened and watched.

On the way back, I was late for my osteo appointment (yes, we're all in need of therapy), so I drove straight to my appointment instead of dropping her off at home. She would drive the last few blocks into the town, and I pulled over so she could do this. I told her to give it more gas and see if that helped, but mostly I talked to her about the mind over matter, the fear of stalling, the mental block she had created.

Lo and behold, she drove me into town with no stalling. Took off, and came back to get me an hour later, in the same car! (she could have gone home and switched to an automatic). She also loaded up the car with beer bottles (258!) and we took them back to the store.

It was her night to cook supper, burgers on the menu, so after she had done that too, I gave her a big hug and told her I would tell Dad all about her good day.

"I'm so proud of her", he said later, amazed that beer bottles and car driving fears had been taken care of in one day.

I am so proud of Caitie too! She faced her fears, and even drove the car to her dance class later that night. It's not about the fear, it's about getting it right enough times that you build a little confidence, and have a least one success to convince yourself 'I can do it!'

If Caitie only knew what a life lesson that is for me, in mid-life....

musemother
ps I am also writing a blog at owning pink, there's a link on this blog
if you're curious

Menopause blog and link

Happy Monday! after scary thunderstorms and full lightshows of lightning, after rain that overflwoed the gutters and poured all the earth from my rock garden down to the grass below, we are back to sunny skies, albeit with clouds. My sister and I and our kids had a free show Saturday night right on our deck, watching the lightning crack and zap the sky over the lake.

Back to the blog, it's a good thing I can reread the promises I make to myself here - have to admit my 100 Days of Solitude has barely begun and already I'm losing track of what my goal was - to re-read my stories and journal about them, to get at the truth behind the lies I may tell myself about who I was, the masks I wear to cover whatever feelings are leftover from childhhood, teenage years, shame about my past - the first writing project I did back in Creative Writing 101 was a Taboo Journal, which led to a book ten years later called Little Mother. In it I addressed part of my childhood shame - having an alcoholic mother, and being the eldest of eight children. I was thrust into a role of 'mothering' at a young age, with no power or authority but lots of responsibility. (Had a chance to chat about this with my sister this weekend, so it came back to memory.)

Naturally, when I hit 13, I began acting out - I think my mom must have been pre-menopausal when I was 16 or so, (I got my period at age 15) but in any case, whether there were hormones in the mix or not, there was definitely lots of attitude and bad behaviour on my part. Some of the stories deal with the wild stuff that happened before I left home at 18. Definitely time for me to work on these stories. It takes courage.....

Anyway, today's G&M Life Section has a great article about the clash of menopause and puberty, for moms and teens:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/menopausal-mom-pubescent-teen-hormone-hell/article1215931/

I've blogged about it over at ms menopause's blog: http://www.msmenopause.blogspot.com/

Check out the weekly blogs there including The Art Of Napping, creating your own Menopause Party, Menopause poems and jokes, different approaches to healthcare such as Ayurvedic approach to menopause, Self-Care, and much more.

namaste, peace to you,
jennifer/musemother

What Mommy Wars?

Read an article today in G&M Life pages, "Mommy wars" - whether full time daycare is ok for children, now that Ontario wants to offer it, is at the basis of this article. The title is so old, however, because mommies are just trying to do their best, it's not about which is better, full-time care with at home mommies or day care and working mommies. It's not a black or white issue.

Isn't it always about choice? whether the issue is birth control, abortion or full-time day care, parenting at home whether by fathers or mothers, it's all about choice. Women want to do what is best but they sometimes can't decide what that 'best' is.

Some of limited economic means feel they have no choice - between working and putting kids in day care and not eating, they choose working. The limited options for working parents (outside of Quebec's subsidized day care) are more of a problem than the working mother's guilt at not seeing every rite of passage unfold before her eyes. It isn't simple. And it isn't the same for everyone. See the recent blog about daddies at home, some due to job losses, some due to choice. It's not only about isolation versus self-fulfillment through work, either.

As a mostly stay at home mom who chooses to work from home, with workshops and retreats bringing me outside part-time, I have the best of both worlds. It has always worked best this way for me, hiring part time care when I needed it. When the kids were little, I both wanted to be with them, and wanted a foot outside of the house in my own creative world of writing. Now that they are teens, they need me less, but I'm still around when they do.

When they were little, the options were easier for me to afford. I tried full time daycare and lasted three days, when my son was one year old. I opted for home-care three days a week with a nanny. Even though my home office was just upstairs, which made it difficult to not intervene when there were tears, I did have the time and mental space to mark papers, prepare teaching plans. The biggest discovery was a shared office in a dingy university English department with rundown furniture and a tiny space-- that felt like being on vacation compared to being at home with two small kids all day. Yet I was there to see the first teeth fall out.

The hardest challenge I faced was graduating from university and no more teaching position - graduating to a full-time mommy role, albeit with pre-school and kindergarden schedules filling in for some of the time. Still, I don't think my life was any easier, or harder, than my sister's lifestyle. She went back to work after trying to stay home full time with her second baby. I think she lasted three or four months before she knew it wasn't good for her mental health to be cooped up at home. She missed her work, she missed the stimulation of a job and co-workers. But then, she had to drop them off in winter at the homecare around 6:30 am and pick them up after dark in the evening. When they got older, they prepared their own meals some nights and she'd arrive in time to take them to Tae Kwon Do twice a week.

My solution to the 'going crazy feeling' was to keep active in the writing community as a volunteer, organizing readings, meetings, writing a newsletter, going to see other writers read, reviewing books, working on projects I could do from home. I also joined mothering groups, mom and tot groups, and volunteered at their schools. I kept busy, fought my lack of patience and mounting anger with therapy sessions, wrote about my lack of patience and anger at being the only one they called out to in the middle of the night, explored the issues that came up for me so intensely in a book called "Little Mother".

In my experience, the Mommy wars have been inside of me, not with other women. I appreciate that staying at home is very difficult unless you build a network of friends to support you. I appreciate that working full time means you only get to see your kids between 6 pm and bedtime, which at some ages means an hour and a half of get supper ready, get pyjamas on, and hop into bed. There are advantages and disadvantages to both choices.

Can governments support working parents better? yes. Can we give stay-at home parents more tax breaks? Yes - Penelope Leach's 1994 book "Children First" makes a very strong argument for government support and family friendly workplaces being good the the economy and for families. Let's give parents more options, more choice.

Two other excellent books about the pitfalls, challenges and joys of mothering: The Mother Zone by Marni Jackson, and The Myth of the Perfect Mother, Parenting without Guilt, by Jane Swigart. Both these books help us see mothering as something outside of the stereotypes we have unconsciously swallowed. The emotional reality is that it draws out the best and the worst of us, and yet, without children the 'world' would cease to exist. The reality is that parenting work is "heroic". It takes courage to give a child what they truly need.

nameste
musemother

Prom, Teens and Sex

We're driving home after dance class when m 16 1/2 year old daughter tells me she has booked a space for her after-prom, downtown. So I ask if the limousine is going to stick around and drive them home afterwards. No, but that's ok, she said, we're booking a hotel room.

I rapidly look over at her, and back on the road: What? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you staying in a hotel room by yourselves.

Why not? it's just a bunch of girls.....(shifty look, sideways glance)

Can you look me in the eye and tell me there will be no boys there? I ask outright.

Mom! of course the girls with boyfriends will have them there, but no one else would be trashy enough to do that. What are you so upset about? Don't you trust me? I'm not some kind of whore....

What is it that bothers me? the fact that you're 16 and still a virgin....and by the way, not only trashy girls or whores enjoy having sex.

(we continue to argue for a while about the trust issue, about whether it's her or the situation I don't trust, then shelve the conversation for later, with her dad, who is infinitely calmer than I am).

Am I being too overprotective? perhaps. Did her brother have a prom night, a limo, and an afterprom party? yes, but he came home with the limo driver at 2 am and I met him in the kitchen - I had supplied a bottle of champagne for their after-party, and although he was a little soused, he was still standing, and not too ill. His date had left at midnight (probably a coach turning into a pumpkin, or a limo into a volkswagen rabbit). Is it different for girls? yes!

How to protect our daughters from unwanted sex from inebriated young guys on the look-out for easy pickings is probably the fear behind my protectiveness.

Was I sexually active before 18? you bet. It was the 70's after all. But these days, girls are giving oral sex as easily as a goodnight kiss, according to one author quoted in the Globe & Mail newspaper yesterday. (www.globeandmail.com/life) Sharlene Azam has made a documentary about the ease with which some girls 'empower themselves' by gaining male attention through sex. Some are even exchanging sex for money, although they don't want to call it prostitution.

Of course, we have a responsibility towards our sons too, to teach them the value of healthy sex versus what they see in movies and on internet porn. Somewhere out there our values as a society have become very twisted - between 'real' life and 'movie' life the lines are blurred. How does a girl/young woman really want to be treated? does she want to be thrown away like a used kleenex? (apparently father-less girls are more at risk, but mothers cannot bury their heads in the sand and pretend they don't see what's going on)

Girls may think they can have sex without consequences, without needing caring and affection in return, but they are misguided. It usually ends with a feeling of being used, of emptiness. We have it built into us to make bonds, create lasting relationships, not casual hook-ups.

I haven't decided yet what to tell my daughter - I need to discuss it calmly and rationally with her father - but we will be talking openly about self-esteem, self-love, alcohol and boundaries. Two close relatives of mine had teen pregnancies, and I suppose I am too aware that once is all it takes. Not to mention all the other consequences of unprotected sex....

I welcome any comments or helpful advice from readers on this touchy topic,

musemother

back to school

It's not fair! it's still summer, the cicadas are buzzing, it's hot and the pool is empty. My girl has begun last year of high school (sec 5 in Quebec, Gr 11 elsewhere); my son has started 2nd year of Cegep (2 yrs of college pre-university). They've bought their books, and binders and pens, their favourite pencil leads, done their own laundry, shopped for new clothes (altho thank god the school uniform from last year still fits, and the shoes!)

My tall gorgeous daughter who loves to dance, doing all kinds of auditions, stressed about getting on to the competition teams in hip hop or jazz ballet....beginning an Ayurvedic diet this week to help her bones and her health.

My tall gorgeous son who is driving himself wherever he needs to go, buying his own textbooks, marvelling at the cost of things. Booking his own orientation counsellor appointments, figuring out his next steps, without much advice or help from us.

And I am at home, negotiating, organizing, getting estimates, approving prices, buying furniture, planning our first major move in 12 and a half years, since the beginnings of grade school for my son. Packing up the likes of a five bedroom house, and emptying all its cupboards (soon, very soon).

All I want to do is lounge by the pool, savour the heat. Fall coming usually inspires me into action, but the crisp cool days are not here yet. We are jumpstarted into fall with school schedules, but far from sweater and loafer days.

sigh, this menopausal cycle is spiralling me inwards and out of words.

I love my collages, the cards I am making, the pastel colouring I do occasionally. And I love looking at the clouds. The dreamer in me wakes. The sky is my companion. and the sound of Om resonating from my stereo grounds me and soothes my agitated mind.

too much thinking makes the system acid, said the ayurvedic consultant. OK, maybe singing, swimming and meditating will make me more alkaline.....

happy weekend,
musemother

Mothering Teen Daughters

In her book Mother-Daughter Wisdom, Dr Christiane Northrup talks about The School of Friendship or how adolescent girls manage their emotions.

It seems like the minefield of high school and nastiness from girlfriends can make being a teenaged girl feel like being a contestant on Survivor. Am I going to be voted out today, or can I still play the game?

Northrup suggests that brain development and hormonal changes bring up "raw uncensored emotions" like anger or hostility. There is no difference between what an adult feels and an adolescent, it's just that they haven't learned to censor them yet or cover them up with food, alcohol or marijuana. Unacceptable feelings also get hidden in the body and come up as illness.

"Adolescence is a small window in time in which an entire peer group -- all of whom are going through huge physical and emotional changes at slightly different rates-- is thrown together in school to learn the social and vocational skills they will be applying throughout their lives. This process started in childhood, of course. But now, the addition of hormonal urges and sexuality make things much more intense. (just like animals in the wild, they pick on people who are different, through herd behavior). "some of it, however, is attributable to the culture we live in."

"I believe adolescent female nastiness is a natural consequence of growing up in a patriarchal society in which a girl's needs for self-development have not been taken seriously until fairly recently. In hierarchical social structures like patriarchy, it has been observed that those with the lowest status tend to fight amongst themselves for the attention of those who have more power than they do. Alice Walker once remarked that the slaveowners knew very well how to keep the slaves in their places -- just keep them fighting amongst themselves. ...Likewise, if we as mothers and women continue to believe that adolescent girls are just naturally nasty, moody and difficult, then we cannot be of much help to them as they negotiate this critical entrance into the adult world of expanded self-expression and creativity."

(and if we haven't worked on our own stuff, how can we guide them past the places where they get stuck?)

Mother-Daughter Wisdom, Dr. Christiane Northrup

Maybe we shouldn't pressure our daughters to be 'nice' all the time. Maybe the indirect back-stabbing and gossipping comes from not being encouraged to speak up. Maybe we should teach our daughters to name this behavior: shunning girls who don't fit in, making fun of girls with the 'wrong' clothing or hairdo's, talking behind girls' backs, etc. Stop the hurtful behaviour one girl at a time, one mother at a time. "That's how a culture changes." (adapted from Northrup's chapter on friendship)

See Northrup's book for some tips on how to help your daughter negotiate girlfighting (validate your daughter's experience; update your own views; point out the real motivation behind the Queen bees of the world; accept your daughter's humanity and that you may not be able to remove the influence of the queen; don't allow your daughter to take it out on you; keep talking and keep your ear to the ground; be her mother, not her best friend; acknowledge and support your daughter's innate ability to deal with her own life).

So, mothers and daughters, express yourselves with love and joy. Speak up and be willing to grow wise.

this wisdom for mothers book is a real treasure, and too lengthy to quote more from,
so I recommend you read it for yourself,

musemother