I Want To Be A Super Hero But I Am Just A Mother.

This blog is a day late. No excuses, no griping, just plain, simply late. I was going to write about my family's experience at the local ER where, 20 months apart, my daughter and I had the misfortune to encounter the same attending physician. I was going to tell you the irony of my experience compared to hers. I went in via ambulance on a backboard after an injury, given morphine, valium, sat up once I was floating in the sky, no X-ray taken, told my muscles were taut, told to exercise to release muscles, and discharged within 1 hour. One week later, I was still walking like a chicken and swearing like a 'fish-wife'; I went to my local doctor only to discover that I had actually fractured my spine and herniated a disc.

My daughter, on the other hand, fell off her scooter last week. We took her to the ER and the same doctor (just our luck) took eight X-rays, casted her arm, and told us he could not diagnose properly if it was broken but he felt sure it was and that we should see an orthopedic specialist. Needless to say, we followed instructions and after a week of juggling bags, books, baths, and general pain-in-the-bottom awkwardness, we were told that there was no way this arm was broken and the cast was taken off. Apart from the obvious, that this man should be seriously thinking about a new career, I also spent a fortune in medical bills. However, what struck me yesterday was not the irony of these two experiences that the one doctor had given us, not the total lack of professionalism, competency, and oblivion, it was the fact that twice this man had made my life just that little bit harder on top of all that a mother has to cope with.

So where is this going you may ask? Is this going to be another mother dribbling on about how much she has to do? Well, yes and no, it is sort of, and you know what, I wallow occasionally. I, unlike that doctor, cannot leave my responsibilities at the sliding doors and start again fresh with the next patient. Every day I juggle old problems with new ones and, if I am lucky, I will get a beautiful reprieve in the middle of it with a smiling, happy child. Take yesterday for instance. At 6 a.m. I woke up after six hours of interrupted sleep due to my son feeling poorly in the night. I packed lunch for my daughter, who is going back to school after also being sick. I get breakfast, showered, I get her breakfast, usher her to get showered and dressed appropriately. We go over completed homework to check it, we find pieces of important paper that have miraculously traveled about the house on their own, and finally we leave for school. All the time the atmosphere is getting tenser by the minute.

As we approach the school, we start the process of negotiation. The negotiation that always ends in screaming tears. You see, as I wrote about last year, she has something called School Phobia. Yes, for those of you who are laughing right now, it is a serious problem. After 45 minutes of gut-wrenching wails, I have to leave her stranded in the car park in the arms of her teacher, sobbing. She calls after me, saying I don't understand, and the final heart-string-pulling words "please, don't leave me." She is twelve, and this has been going on for seven years; I am emotionally exhausted. I sat in the car crying myself. I call her counselor for a pep talk, for confirmation that I have done the right thing. Then I go about my so-called normal day, trying to ignore the fact I had walked away from my child.

Leaving behind a distressed child is against all motherly instincts; being cruel to be kind is not a saying I like. Wanting to run back and whisk her away from her demons always pulls me, but I know I cannot. I have to forge forward hoping that by homecoming time she has forgiven me. During the day, I tend to my other child, make lunches, do laundry, shopping, trip to the pharmacy, pay bills, and clear up the devastation in my house. Within a few hours, I am heading back to the school, only to be greeted by a sulky child who obviously cannot comprehend why I leave her at a place that scares her so. We go to see her counselor, emotionally exhausting to say the least, and finally at 6 p.m. we are heading home. At home, we are thrown into homework, preparing dinner, book reading to calm down before the bedtime stresses, and then finally I can fall into my bed at about 10 p.m. By the time I was able to write this blog last night, I was too exhausted. What is more, I do confess I usually have a glass of something calming beside me.

School phobia does not come and go at the school gates, it infiltrates into your home like an unwanted visitor, and it can show up at any time, even in school vacations when there is not a school day in sight. It is not time-related, it is not aware of your other demands; it just has to come first. So, this is my life and I can say with certainty that it will probably not change for the next six years. It seems like a prison sentence to me, but, honestly, it must seem like a death sentence to my wonderful daughter. I will be with her every step of the way, come hell or high water I will never give up or let go, but I have to expect that I will fail at times with my other duties or deadlines. I can only hope that others can see this and forgive me.

From
The Brit, whose blog was late.

They Can’t Rewrite History, Can They?

In 1857 women didn’t have many options. They couldn’t vote, they couldn’t own property, and you hardly, if ever, heard of a woman having an education that went further than finishing school. The best most women could hope for was to marry well. Then one day in 1857, a far-sighted gentleman decided to give ten thousand dollars and eight acres of land for the education of women. For 154 years Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina, has been doing just that, educating women, until an announcement was made on July 21 that the school was going to become coeducational and the name would change to William Peace University.

Since the announcement, debate and controversy have ensued, but not for the reason some might think. While Peace is a private college, the board of trustees and the president are not required to discuss or review proposed changes with the student body, the alumnae, or even the faculty, so the announcement was made without prior knowledge to anyone, save the board and the current president. In fact, as early as January of this year, the board had announced that going coed was not even on the table, let alone a name change. Oh yeah, then there is all the business about complete course studies being done away with and tenured professors being forced out. So I guess you could say that an entire community was sucker punched and expected not to exhale.

Critics came out of the woodwork, making statements about the women who protested the change. (Although most were protesting the way the change was brought about and announced.) The comments ranged from: “men haters, left wing feminists, these are the same types of women who complain about so called glass ceilings,” and, “just go get your husband’s wallet.” Holy 1950’s, Batman! What year are we living in? There was the one who wrote: “You wanted the Equal Rights Amendment, you got it, now suck it up.” (Now that’s just plain silly. Only 35 of the necessary 38 states have ratified the ERA. When three more states vote yes, only then would it be possible that the ERA could be the 28th amendment.) These critics missed the point entirely. The dissent has everything to do with a lack of communication and preserving the history and integrity of a place that many called home for a time. You wouldn’t change the name of your home would you? A rose by any other name would, quite simply, no longer be a rose.

You see, I attended Peace College and it holds more than special memories for me. When I went there it was a community of women who learned together and grew into womanhood together. When I wrote “A Journey of Peace” this month, it was to share my history. Mine is just one little story out of the many that found a place to become. But the great “they” have already decided to change the history that I knew. On the college website they have reworked Peace’s history. Where it used to say “Peace College has a long tradition of providing education to women,” it now says “Peace has a long tradition of providing education.” Gone is the initial statement that once said William Peace provided the land and money for the continued education of women. The final sentence of that web page used to say “Peace College enjoys a reputation of providing women a unique environment…” and now says: “Today Peace College enjoys a reputation of providing a unique environment.” I used to love history; I just didn’t realize it could be so easily rewritten.