being a role model for my kiddo

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Three Things Thursday

I am wearing my hair curly today. I kind of hate it??? “Well, just don’t wear your hair curly, Suzanne,” you might be saying briskly, with a tiny bemused head tilt and mild furrow of your brow. And sure, that SOUNDS simple, but a) my hair is naturally wavy/curly, so it requires blowdrying to jar it out of its natural state, which is not ideal ever but especially awful during the sweatslick of summer, and b) my Instagram feed is full of people who look amazing with curly hair and one of my closest friends sometimes wears her hair curly and it is fabulous, so it should be possible for me to wear my hair curly without hating it. So far, it is not possible. I got a gift card from Ulta for some holiday or other and used it to buy a bunch of sample sizes of curl enhancing products. While they do seem to enhance the curl, they do not enhance my appearance. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I just don’t have the face for curly hair? I feel like the curls exacerbate the roundness of my face. And somehow my hair has less volume when curly? Also, it’s very unevenly curly, with tighter coils around the left side of my face and looser/more jagged waves around the back. I don’t know. Perhaps I should have spent the 2020 lockdown pursuing the Curly Girl Method or otherwise figuring out how to like my hair this way. But I did not and so I am going around hating it until it’s time to wash my hair and start fresh. 

Nutrition, always a tricky subject, feels like it’s at an all-time low in our house right now. Carla makes her own lunch for camp, and I have to say that I honestly have no idea what’s in it. She wasn’t eating the well-rounded and nutrient dense lunches I packed for her anyway, and at least now I don’t have the double whammy of packing a lunch (ugh) and then seeing it return home after being unrefrigerated all day and having to dump it in the disposal (double ugh). I think sometimes she packs pickles and pepperoni and I close my eyes and concentrate on the fact that one is a vegetable and the other contains some protein.

The way we live our lives is not conducive to a lot of methods that most people seem to use to enforce proper nutrition. (We don’t eat as a family regularly, so I end up making separate meals for Carla which makes life easier in a lot of ways but doesn’t leave a lot of room for modeling the type of eating I want to promote.) But between the possibly garbage lunches Carla is eating and the presence of way too many sweets in her life (she uses her allowance to buy candy and chips at camp and at the library after camp), I feel a little fretful about the future. She’s eleven now, which means that puberty is around the corner, and I think this is a time in her life when she really needs to focusing on eating nutrient dense foods, both for all the growing she is about to do and for establishing good habits as she gets older and takes on increasing responsibility for her own food choices. 

But I don’t know what to DO. Hire a nutritionist is a possibility, I suppose, and Stephany’s experience has been positive enough that this has potential. But I am wary of the expense and worried about how hard it will be to find a nutritionist whose philosophies about body size and food morality jive with my own. (Also – and this is silly but it IS coloring my thoughts about nutritionists – a friend of mine hired a family nutritionist and her main suggestion seemed to be about making all sorts of “balls” with protein powder and dates and stuff, and I just cannot get behind a ball-centric food solution. This may sound 100% bonkers, but it is nonetheless true: I do not like foods shaped into balls, and I am not going to eat them.) (Cake pops: no. Meatballs: hard pass. Falafel: no thanks. Protein balls: no way.) I have tried making and eating multiple ball-foods, and I can say with confidence they are a no from me dawg. Beyond hiring a nutritionist, what to do? Oh, and I guess I should say that my word alone holds no water with my child. (For proof: We talked to a health professional, who by the way was not being consulted about food/nutrition and who has no expertise in food/nutrition, who told Carla humans should not drink milk outside of infancy, and she instantly grabbed onto this statement as The One Irrefutable Truth despite all the dozens of very reasonable, science-backed arguments my husband and I made to the contrary.) (And listen: I can, in some ways, understand that argument! I can! People can and do live their whole lives without milk! And yet, “you shouldn’t drink milk” is not a good suggestion to make to A CHILD whose parents struggle to get her to take in enough protein or calcium when milk is a perfectly good, legitimate source of both of those things. Also! I do not force my child to drink milk! I simply put it in smoothies, on the rare occasions she allows me to coax her to drink one!)  

Most of that previous paragraph was a parenthetical, and honestly sounds a little crazycakes, so I am going to start fresh. So, options: 1. Nutritionist. 2. Books??? I listened to a pretty decent book called The XX Brain by Dr Lisa Mosconi recently. It’s about how the female brain ages and steps we can take to nourish and protect our brains against cognitive decline. A large portion of the book is devoted to the importance of nutrition, and I found it pretty persuasive. However, the book is not something that would resonate with Carla. Maybe I could try Mosconi’s previous book, Brain Food? Carla and I could possibly listen to it together in the car. It would be better, of course, if there were books about the importance of nutrition that were targeted to her age group. This book seems to have a lot of information, and might be easy to pick up and leaf through… but even in the online sample, it struck me as having an anti-fat bias. A book about intuitive eating but geared toward teens might have potential… This one sounds like it offers a good mix of practical tips and evidence based suggestions, although I would want to read the chapters about “healthy weight” before I shared it with Carla.

Option 3. Podcasts??? Are there nutrition podcasts that would be appropriate for tweens? I almost never listen to podcasts, so I have no idea where to even BEGIN, and when I google there are ten million options which is overwhelming. Ideally, I would want a podcast I could listen to WITH Carla. Like I said, she’s much more likely to take advice from someone who is not me. Plus, I would really love advice about nutrition for kids her age or older. My experience with a lot of “kid-based” nutrition resources (like Instagram) is that they are directed at parents of very young children. I love the Kids Eat in Color account and have gleaned some good ideas from it, but I feel like I should have started following it ten years ago. Not a whole lot of it is applicable to an eleven-year-old, you know? As long as I’m making a podcast wishlist, I also want one that isn’t focused on weight gain/loss or being fat. There are plenty of OTHER valid reasons to eat a well-balanced diet, and that’s the message I want to get across to Carla at this very vulnerable stage in her life.

I want someone to tell me what to DO. Someone who understands that it’s not as simple as “just don’t have those things in the house,” because I don’t want to make “those foods” more tantalizing by being forbidden, and because I do think eating is MORE than just nourishing our bodies. Someone who gets kids who are picky. Someone who knows what to do when a kid is fine just not eating if the food on offer is unpalatable to her. Someone who believes in health at every size and who isn’t going to suggest cutting out an entire macronutrient. Someone who has better arguments against candy and chips than “they will make you fat.” Someone who also believes that candy and chips do have a role – if a far, far less frequent one – in a well-rounded diet.

I want to be clear that things aren’t DIRE, or anything. I think Carla eats a decent mix of fruits and veggies and fats and proteins and carbs. Her doctor has never expressed concern with how she is growing. I just wish I could get her to eat a wider variety of things, and that she would be open to eating a wider variety more often, and that I could get her to be less reliant on/interested in snack/junk foods. I just feel like we’re at an inflection point and I want to help her figure out how to eat in a way that is both nourishing and satisfying. Probably I will just keep flailing along as best I can, punctuated by moments of throwing my hands in the air with the impossibility of it all.

Yesterday, I forgot my address. I am putting this in print both because it was hideously embarrassing to the point that I keep going over it and over it in my mind, and committing things to print often allows my brain to stop dwelling on them; and because I want to have a record of it just in case this is the beginning of a steep slide into dementia. This happened during my writing group session. One of the members asked for my address and I could not remember it. At all. I mean, I knew the street name, at least. But I could not think of the street number. Our other member had to look it up in her phone for me. It was so awful! How do you forget your own address?!?!?! Is this a perimenopause thing? Is this a side effect of my ongoing lack of solid sleep? Is there something else at play? Or is it just a memory blip on the wide spectrum of “normal”? I don’t know, but it was alarming. 

What are you thinking about today? Have you ever had such an upsetting memory lapse?

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Good Things

I am having a really rough time. A really rough time. The highs are there, sure, but everything is shadowed with despair. And the lows are… Well. They are low. (Not yet low enough for me to break into my Emergency Ice Cream, though. Let’s not think about how low that threshold is.)

Here are some good things:

Carla and I went for a neighborhood scavenger hunt. I “laminated” the list with packing tape, so that we can do it over and over. (I am imagining venturing into different areas of our neighborhood, rather than marking off the same across-the-street red door over and over.) (I also took notes on our walk of other items for another list, so that we don’t get bored.)

Scavenger Hunt

We did not find a single squirrel OR a baby in a stroller.

Target delivered my Oreos and I promptly ate six of them with a glass of milk.

Oreos + milk

One of nature’s perfect food combinations.

The lettuce we planted last week is ALREADY SPROUTING! Sprouts are a long way from nice fluffy edible lettuce leaves, but it’s a good start.

 

What’s making your day brighter today?

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New Tires and Kindness Misogyny

Do you remember, way back in May, when I vowed to change my car’s air filter?  Probably not. It may seem like an odd promise to make to oneself. But I grow weary of having to depend on others for things. (Funny that this is a completely mercurial feeling. I have no issue with having people come mow my lawn and clean my gutters.)

Anyway. My promise. My dad told me I needed a new air filter; fine, I needed a new one. And I was going to change that air filter all by myself, because I am A Capable Woman who can choose to do a menial automotive repair anytime she likes.

The first hitch took place online, in my search for the air filter. My father had directed me to one specific filter, available on Amazon, but instead of buying it without asking questions, I clicked on some sort of link that said “is this the right air filter for your car?” or maybe I read a review of the filter excoriating the product based on the reviewer’s failure to determine whether it was the correct filter for his/her car.  However I got there, it seemed like the filter my father had recommended was not, in fact, appropriate for my car.

But then I couldn’t find the right one. I found something that SEEMED right. But my dad (the person with Actual Car Knowledge) was skeptical. And my car manual was NO HELP AT ALL. The only thing it had to offer was a single rather poorly-rendered drawing of the air filter with no specs or anything.

I was stumped.

My dad suggested that I go to my local auto parts store and ask someone there; they’d have some sort of computer database to consult. Which was a good suggestion. But I, Serious Introvert, would have preferred ordering my air filter online without ever having to interact with another human.

So I did nothing.

Time passed.

A couple of weeks ago, Carla and I went to buy new tires for my car. The tread was worn down to nearly nothing and it was time for new tires, and my local Tire Place had a good deal running. So we set out for an Exciting Excursion together and sat in the Tire Place waiting room while the tires were installed.

The Tire Guys – the two gentlemen working the front desk – were very, very nice. They seemed delighted by Carla, who is, objectively, delightful. They told us, proudly, that their waiting area had a large selection of toys and books. (I was glad I’d thought to bring my own books and a matching game for Carla AND my Lysol wipes because the entire waiting area, including the books and toys, was FILTHY. You have never seen a dirtier waiting area in all your life.) (They had a tiny coffee table in the center of the room, probably two feet by three feet, if that, and it took scrubbing roughly with FOUR antibacterial wipes to get it to a level of cleanliness that I was okay with.) They kept coming into the waiting area and offering us juice and water and coffee (the latter not directed to Carla), and one of them whisper-asked me if he could give Carla a yo-yo, and they just in general thought she was the bees knees.

When I was checking out, a process that seemed like Tire Guy had sent my credit card via courier turtle to the home office, I noticed that one of the services offered by the establishment was “change air filter.” So I asked if he could look up what kind of air filter my particular car required.

He looked at me curiously and said that no, he couldn’t. But there was an auto parts store right next door and they would be able to do it for me.

“We offer an air filter change service,” he noted. And I nodded.

“You’re just trying to save money?” he asked, implying that I should have just had them take care of it.

I could have said that I really wanted to do it myself. That I wanted the satisfaction of doing something on my own, of proving to myself that I could do it. But I didn’t know him, and he didn’t really care, and Carla was running back and forth across the showroom (is that what you call it, when what’s being “shown” is stacks of various brands of tires?) and flinging herself – with no regard for bodily safety – against one of two armchairs on the far side of the room, much to the consternation of the only other customer, who was sitting in the other armchair, so I simply nodded.

“Sometimes the auto parts guys will just put it in for you,” he mentioned in an offhand way, returning to whatever turtle coaxing he had to do to get my credit card processed.

I nodded politely. The checkout process dragged on interminably. I encouraged Carla to find an alternate way to amuse herself. She busied herself by climbing onto a very high stool and coloring in the book I’d brought her in the most precarious way possible.

Finally I signed my bill, collected my child, and left. We admired the new tires on my car, and then hoofed it over to the auto parts store which was, indeed, right next door. There, I purchased an air filter. We headed back to our car. Very easy.

As I buckled Carla into her car seat, the Tire Guy strode toward us.

“Did they have what you needed?” he asked. I nodded and smiled and thanked him for directing me to the auto parts store.

“We can put that in for you,” he said.

“Oh, that’s so nice of you!” I said, “but that’s not necessary!”

He ignored me and walked around the to the front door of my car, which he opened. He reached inside and pulled the lever to unlatch my hood. He opened the hood, looked inside at my engine, and then closed it without latching it. Then he grabbed my new air filter off of the passenger seat and opened the box, carrying it with him as he walked back toward the tire center.

“Pull it up here,” he called, pointing me toward the garage.

I laughed uncomfortably. But at this point, he had the air filter and… he was being kind, I thought. What was I supposed to do? Demand he hand it back to me?

I got in the car and drove into the garage. Carla caught on to my discomfort and asked what was happening, what were we doing? I told her that the man was being very nice and had offered to change our air filter to help us out. The Tire Guy handed our air filter over to a younger man – a boy, really; he couldn’t have been more than twelve, although I am probably wrong – and went over to a desk on the side of the garage.

I unhooked Carla from her carseat and held her up as we watched the young man change the air filter. (Which is, in my car at least, the EASIEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. He literally unscrewed three or four screws, lifted off the filter cover, lifted out the old air filter, dropped the new filter in, replaced the cover, replaced the screws. I definitely could have done it myself.) Then I tipped the boy $5 and we were on our way.

The whole thing left me feeling so conflicted.

On the one hand, what an act of kindness! Generosity in action! Great customer service! What a thoughtful thing for the Tire Guy to do. It saved me time, it saved me money (probably; he asked what I paid for the air filter and shrugged and said he would have charged me $6 more to do the whole thing, so I came out $1 ahead). Maybe it was an act designed to give me warm fuzzy feelings about that tire center, and make it my tire center for life. Or maybe it wasn’t about me, at all, but about the Tire Guy: maybe I reminded him of his wife or sister or daughter or niece and he treated me with the same kindness he’d want for her; maybe he remembered what life was like with an active child Carla’s age and decided to spare me the time and exasperation of trying to make an automotive repair with her in tow; maybe he likes to do random acts of kindness; who knows?!

But I also felt… deflated, I guess, about not getting to do the thing I wanted to do myself. And anxious, because I was unsure how to assert myself in that situation. (Why did I get so flustered? I should have donned one of those breezy confident smiles of the kind that are so easy to imagine and so difficult to execute and said in a breezy confident voice, “Oh no thanks! I’ve got it under control!” Or “I’ll take care of it – thanks!” Or “no need! I’ve got it!”) And frustrated with myself, for not being able to assert myself and for feeling more concerned about a stranger’s feelings than my own. And worried about what that meant for what I was modeling for Carla. I also had an overall feeling of ickiness, that I wasn’t sure how to attribute. Was it a result of the combination of deflation, anxiety, and frustration? Or the nagging feeling that I’d just been “rescued” when… I was not in need of being rescued? (I mean, if my husband had been there instead of me… he almost certainly would have purchased the air filter and been on his way, right?)

Most of all, I felt confused about what impression the whole experience would leave on Carla. I don’t want her to feel like she has to depend on other people. But of course I want her to feel like she can. I want her to feel warmly about society, and community, and to grow up wanting to help others and to not be afraid to ask for help if she needs it.

And do I want to begrudge the tire center man his small act of generosity? Certainly not. Do I want other women, who might feel wholly, unadulteratedly grateful and relieved about this unexpected gift from the automotive gods, to feel guilty or ashamed for accepting this kind of help? HELL TO THE NO.

But I am also weary of this kind of thing – kind hearted, well-intentioned or not – that gradually chips away at a woman’s sense of capability, of strength, of self-worth. The automatic assumption that I would need or want help. I don’t want Carla to feel like she can pull a damsel in distress act anytime she feels like it and A Man will swoop in and save her. Moreso, I don’t want her to feel like that’s what she SHOULD do. That she shouldn’t try things, because men can do it better/more easily. (Is it different, that I let my father tell me when to get new tires and when to change my air filter? I hope it is. I hope that is the non-action of a lazy child rather than the helpless spinning of a delicate girl.)

Ugh. I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Am I doing that? Maybe that’s what I’m doing.

Would I feel the same sort of conflicted confusion if the whole situation were the same, but the Tire Guy had been a Tire Woman?

And I don’t want to see misogyny where there is (probably) only kindness. I mean, if the Tire Guy had been my dad, well, he might have done the same thing. (Or not. My dad at least would have walked me through how to do it myself, for next time. Possibly he would have even made me do it, while he stood there and offered instructions. I like to think he would have done the same for a stranger, too.) I don’t want to be so hyper-aware of potential discrimination that I find it in places where it isn’t. I don’t want to project bias onto situations where it isn’t.

But I can’t help feeling unsettled about the whole experience, including — maybe especially — my reaction.