Talk to your Mother!...it's good for you

Simcha Fisher

Popular science has a lot to say about mothers and children lately. (Or maybe it’s just like when you buy a new car, and suddenly you see that model everywhere—maybe it’s just me!) There was this lovely little piece about what happens when a mother and her infant smile at each other. According to Science Now,

A new study shows that 3-month-old infants and their mothers can synchronize their heartbeats to mere milliseconds. Researchers sat 40 pairs of mothers and infants face-to-face, equipped with sticky skin electrodes on either side of their hearts. Beat for beat, mother-and-child hearts thumped together almost instantly as they shared loving looks or contented coos. This cardiac coupling worked only for moms with their own babies, and only when the duos synchronized smiles and other cheerful social behaviors, researchers report in this month’s issue of Infant Behavior and Development.

Babycenter explains:

Researchers think that shared smiles and coos trigger all sorts of physiological changes, activating key areas in the brain that control heart rate and surges in oxytocin, the so-called “cuddle hormone.”

[snip]

In long-term studies, researchers have found that being emotionally “in sync” with parents at 3 months of age was a predictor of more secure attachment behavior at 12 months and fewer behavior problems at 24 months.

How good for you, and how pleasant, when mothers and babies dwell together! 

Another scientific tidbit, this time from Wired, says that girls tend to calm down and feel better when they talk to their moms:

[B]oth phone conversations with mom and face-to-face talks triggered similar hormonal responses: a drop in cortisol, which is generally linked to stress, and a rise in oxytocin, which is linked to pleasure.

For the latest study, published in the January issue of Evolution and Human Behavior, they wanted to identify the source of that comforting ...

“Would this still work if we took out the tone, if we took out the verbal cues, and all we had left over was the content of the message?” said Seltzer.

No, it turns out. “[T]he results suggest that mom’s voice — its tones and intonations and rhythms, known formally as prosodics — trigger soothing effects, rather than what she specifically says.” Instant messaging your mom is not the same as hearing her voice. “By the study’s neurophysiological measures, IM was barely different than not communicating at all.” 

And here’s one more story that’s begging me, like a needy child, to be included in this post, even though it’s not grounded in science. In fact, the author of the piece, Brian Pessaryo, says of the phenomenon he noticed, “It doesn’t matter if we don’t understand how it ‘works.’”

What phenomenon? Talking to his mother healed him of his porn addiction. Instantly.

His addiction was so firmly rooted that he says he “gave up resisting,” but when he began to pray the rosary nightly—when he spent some time talking to his mother—it was gone. He says,

OK, so I pray the Rosary and I kicked a nasty porn habit. Ho hum. Big deal, you think. Yes it is, because I should explain that when I say the addiction went away, I don’t mean gradually. I mean it vanished that first night. It was like someone reached inside my brain, found the switch for porn addiction, and turned it off. I can’t explain it. I’m not a sex therapist, but I know that’s not supposed to happen. You don’t just put down a 19-year porn addiction like yesterday’s newspaper and walk away from it. A lot of it has to do with a hormone called epinephrine that’s released in the brain each time you view pornography. It produces a high similar to cocaine. Epinephrine is the gift that keeps on giving because it has a nasty side effect of burning the images into your brain. That’s why even when I was in my late twenties I could still see those images from when I was eleven as if it were yesterday. And now they’re gone.

Pessaro explains that a friend happened to give him a book on Mary.

I felt her say to me sternly, “Brian you’ve got to stop looking at that garbage. Starting now!” My earthly mother hardly ever scolded me when I was younger. I was always the “good son.” But here I was at age 30 getting chastised by my Blessed Mother in a way I had never experienced. “What do you want me to do?” I asked helplessly. I turned the page. Pray the Rosary and wear the Scapular. I groaned. “Rosary?

I’ve tried that before. It’s boring. It doesn’t work for me.” But Mary wouldn’t take no. “Try it again,” she insisted.

No smiles and coos here. But when he talked to his mother, you could say their hearts synchronized. More secure attachment behavior and fewer behavior problems? Check.

Talk to you mother! It’s good for you.

25 Rules for Mothers of Sons

Excellent post from Tabitha over at Team Studer

Inspired by a Pin I've recently seen about "rules for dads with daughters," I went searching for a similar list for moms with sons. This search was mostly fruitless, so I was inspired to write my own Rules for Moms with Sons. Granted, my list will not be conclusive and may not be entirely uncontroversial. So agree, or disagree, or take with a grain of salt - but I hope to inspire other moms who are loving, and struggling, and tired, and proud, and eager to support the boys in their lives. You are the most important woman in his life, his first teacher, and the one he will look to for permission for the rest of his life. From "Can I go play with them?" to "Should I ask her to marry me?" Its a big job, but as the mumma, we're up for it.



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The joyous gift of motherhood

In the First Reading last weekend, we heard these words from the prophet Isaiah: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” (Is. 49:15)

This passage uses the love of a mother as an example of unconditional love. Notice that it does not use the word “father” or the gender-neutral term “parent.” Fatherhood also involves unconditional love, but the image given here is a maternal one. There is something special about a mother’s love for her children, and it is being invoked in this passage.

Scientists explain the unique bond that exists between mother and child in terms of chemicals. According to studies, a woman’s body releases powerful hormones during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, causing her to connect emotionally with her new baby. This special bond is apparent to anyone who sees a new mother holding her child – underneath her exhaustion is an unmistakable joy and radiance that cannot be denied.

Motherhood is a beautiful gift and an opportunity to witness to the world. In the role of mother, women are called to express unconditional love to their children, reflecting the love that God has for his people. This special role of motherhood was once valued in society. Women were traditionally homemakers. Raising children was understood to be a respectable full-time job, stemming from the immense love that a mother had for her children.

Today, however, society has lost respect for motherhood. Women often have to work, and it is difficult for them to stay home with their children. Even when they are at home, they are often distracted from their children. Our culture tells us that our main priority in life should be to seek our own personal fulfillment and happiness. Children are secondary to this, and we should not allow them to conflict with our other ambitions. Those women who do choose to stay home and raise their children are often ridiculed for this decision. The role of homemaker has been degraded and is no longer viewed as an admirable pursuit.

Our society today attacks the role of the mother in other ways as well. Contraception treats motherhood as a disease to be prevented, and abortion treats it as a mistake to be fixed. Gay “marriage” disregards the need for both a mother and a father, undermining the distinctions that make them each unique. In vitro fertilization views motherhood as a “right” that a woman can demand, rather than a blessing for which she should be truly thankful.

Amid these threats coming from every direction, the words of Isaiah still ring true. Today, the need for devoted mothers is greater than ever. God is asking us as women to glorify Him by doing something that comes naturally to us. He is asking us to use our maternal ability to give tender, unfailing love to our children in order to show His unfailing love to the world. Let us pray that all women who have been blessed with the gift of motherhood will take this calling seriously and respond to it generously, realizing the great dignity and value in what they are doing.

From Catholic Womanhood by Michelle Bauman 

Michelle Bauman is a senior at the University of Dallas, where she is studying politics and journalism.

My three son and what I've learned...

from Catholic Womanhood by Cheryl Dickow

I remember when my first son was in need of his first haircut. 
I took him to a professional stylist and, with 35mm camera in 
hand, clicked away, literally walking around and around his 
seat, so that, once developed, the pictures would immortalize
 that very special day in my life, in his life, in the world, I was
sure.

By the time my third son was in need of his first haircut, I let my mom have at it and, as it 

turned out, time did not improve her hair-cutting skills. My youngest son ended up with the 

same bangs that I had worn some 30 years earlier — a wavy line of hair jutting out 

all over the place somewhere between eyebrows and the 

hairline.

Things really do change from the first born to the second and then to the third. And as that is 
all the children we were blessed with, I can go no further with my experience but my 
assumptions would be that by the fifth or sixth child, he or she may very well be performing 
his or her own first haircut.

Now, my oldest is graduating from college, the second is mid-way through his college career, 
and my youngest has almost completed high school. All the years in between those first 
haircuts and this point in time have truly gone by in the blink of an eye.

I can’t say, for sure, what each of my son’s take on things has been; but, for me it has been 
an incredible journey. And I’ll admit that I look back and find great relief that my oldest, in 
particular, has been so forgiving towards me in all the ways I tried to shape and mold him 
into what I thought was right — and certainly in keeping with my post-feminist upbringing 
which included the need to neutralize any distinctions between the sexes along with my 
politically-correct interest in taming all things that could even appear to have a glimmer of “inappropriateness” attached to them.

I remember once when my mother was reading a book to my oldest son. I can’t quite recall 
the book but in retrospect I am positive it was as bland as everything else I allowed into his 
life. She came to some point in the story where, when my husband and I read it, we had 
always chosen to replace some word or phrase with more “proper” words, but not knowing 
better, grandma read the actual words. Well, when he heard her reading it verbatim, he was 
on the floor laughing, “Grandma! It does not say that!” So much for our attempt at politically-
correct censorship.

No matter how hard I tried, though, he was still a “boy.” And that means something. They all 

were, actually, very much “boys.” For instance, they simply weren’t able to pass each other 

in the hall without a push and a shove for good luck. Try as I might to dissuade them, they

were just so “physical” all the time! I once received a note from a teacher who, in all 

seriousness, felt it was imperative to tell me that my son, while playing “Duck-Duck-Goose” 

became so mischievous that he tapped two children instead of one! I can only imagine the 

pandemonium that ensued and my son received from me the sternest of warning against 

such wild classroom antics! At the time I was duly mortified that I would have birthed the 

child who wreaked havoc with “Duck-Duck-Goose” rules.

Of course, despite such notes and other miscellaneous offenses along the way, my boys 
were, in fact, quite good kids — in the grand scheme of things. Sure there were times that 
I was forced to walk away from parent-teacher conferences with a piece of paper held in 
front of my face in hopes of obscuring my identity as I made a beeline towards the door; 
but, all in all they were really fine young boys on their way growing into fine young men.

It’s just that I didn’t have brothers and couldn’t figure out why these boys of mine wouldn’t
sit down and play quietly with one another or do their puzzles in an orderly fashion. I could 
fondly recall how my sisters and I would play school for hours on end. Not a peep out of us 
as we wrote on the chalkboard and assigned one another “homework.”

The closest my boys came to that sort of quiet, structured, group play was when they were 
building Legos; but, for the most part, even that time was spent constructing weapons or
 creating scenarios in which caves, hideouts and counter-attack strategies were necessary.
This, after having been exposed to the dullest of television choices — which were extremely 
time-limited anyhow — and don’t forget censorship galore on all books!

One dinner, when the boys were around 2, 4, and 6 I remember one of them eating a 
piece of bread into the shape of a gun and being completely convinced that I had failed 
as a mother.

“How,” I moaned to my husband, “could they even know about such things?!”
Boys will be boys.

Now that’s a phrase I’m none too fond of but there is some truth to the fact that, well, boys 
will be boys. However, if we understand it not as an excuse for bad behavior but, rather, 
being a plausible testament to some basic genetic truths, we are able to more sufficiently 
appreciate how God created male and female and the path on which each will proceed 
towards developing virtuous behaviors and moral choices. Denying the genetic and natural 
differences between male and female will not make them go away.

And as a mother of all boys — and never having had any brothers — I have grown to love 
the way in which God has made male and female. Raising boys has given me a new 
appreciation of my husband and how, if we are called to the vocation of marriage, we grow 
in beautiful ways when we embrace the unique gifts and talents and personalities of male 
and female.

I am fully convinced that God knew what he was doing when, in His immense wisdom, He 
gave me all sons. I have learned so much about our Creator through my life as a mother 
of boys. So many of the ill-conceived notions about gender-neutrality, which was part and 
parcel of my life as a teenager in the post-radical-feminist-movement that pervaded the 70s, 
have been washed away in the Truth about male and female, their inherent differences, 
their shared dignity, their beauty as having been created, equally but diverse, in His image, 
His likeness.

As my own sons grow into men, I am grateful for the gifts they have received from their 
Creator and feel blessed that I discovered, sooner rather than later, how important their 
unique “maleness” is and how it has been a gift to participate in helping them grow into 
all that God has called them to be as they venture out into the world as men.

Is motherhood worth it???

A post from Catholic Womanhood that all Moms can relate to and all Dads should read...

Has motherhood ever been featured on Dirty Jobs? If not, my 5-year-old would argue that it should be. Not that she's ever seen the show, but she has had an up close and personal look at her mom's dirty work.

We all recently succumbed to a stomach bug, and everyone was hurling all over the place. I fear my minivan will never be the same after one of the children projectile vomited in her carseat. (If anyone has any tips on how to remove the rank smell of vomit from leather, please do share.) Later another child would throw up all over me. Even later I'd find myself shaking and bowed over the toilet. My poor husband was the last to hit puke bottom.


Before I fell prey to the virulent bug, I hugged my sweet, sick girls and then proceeded to pick off chunks of food from the floor, their clothing, my clothing, their hair, my hair, and our couch. Madeline, my 5-year-old, stood by watching me clean up the scene and shook her head. 

"Your job is disgusting," she said. 

"It can be gross," I admitted.


No sense sugarcoating it, especially when coated in vomit.

I remember, when I was waiting to become a mother, imagining what it would be like. Most of my reveries were just that - sepia-toned reveries of me rocking a slumbering baby while the early morning sunlight spilled into the lovely nursery. I never considered we wouldn't have the money or the room to even have a nursery. Our firstborn's miscellany of baby gear was wedged in what couldn't really be called a room and was more of a nook in the old house we were renting while my husband was in medical school. She shared her room with stacks of books and the computer I learned to nurse at while I typed up freelance work to get us through my husband's last year of school before starting residency. It wasn't really my daughter's room at all. I changed a lot of her diapers there, but she mostly slept in my husband and my bed or on a single mattress on the floor curled into me. The 99 buck Consumer Reports best-buy crib that we shoved into the corner was nothing more than a space sucker (although I've used it more with subsequent babies).


Now that we could actually piece together a relatively nice nursery, I'm wise enough to recognize that a pretty baby room is more for the parents than the child. Furthermore, since I'd selfishly rather have a nice kitchen over a Pottery Barn-inspired (read: expensive) nursery, we have a very simple space for our youngest and diverted our decorating funds to other areas. The room is nice enough, and it's well-stocked with the most important thing - books and more books - but it's nothing fancy, which suits me (a not-so-into-interior-design-diva) just fine.


In other dreams of motherhood, I never imagined that one day I'd be immersed in so much hazardous waste removal or that I'd be peed, pooped, and thrown up on. Nor did I realize all the occupational hazards I'd face as a mother. In this past year, I have suffered a bloody nose (after a wound up child popped up while I was hovering over her); a corneal abrasion that required a trip to the ER and an eye patch after my little nursling - AKA slasher - clawed me in the middle of the night; and a large contusion on my thigh that was as big and purple as an eggplant (this trauma was inflicted upon me when I was trying to take out my massive double jogging stroller from the back of my minivan).

To my oldest daughter, I acknowledged the grossness factor as I scrubbed my puke-ridden hands with soap under a steady stream of hot water, but I also told her it's all worth it, partly because as moms, we all know that's what you're supposed to say, especially to your poor, puking progeny. And partly because the more you say it and choose to believe it, the truer it becomes that every single calamitous diaper episode, hurling mess, reeking leather couch, and gouged eye is - against all odds - very much worth it.

"Why?" my daughter asked.


"Because of you," I said. "And your sisters." She blinked, not entirely convinced, and I knew it wasn't a perfect explanation probably because there isn't one.


I sometimes I can't explain it to myself. When I was nursing my toddler at 2:30 a.m., feeling dehydrated after spending the last hour throwing up, I felt tapped out. Then there was the rough day when a toilet overflowed and water flooded our basement (again) and kids were screaming and crying and hitting, and I was exhausted having been up most of the night with the first child to suffer the malady of the stomach bug. I admit I wasn't particularly stoked about being a mom at that moment. I spent a good part of the morning barking orders and feeling sorry for myself.


Then one of my daughters plucked the tiniest white blossom from a plant in our yard and handed it to me. "I picked this flower for you."


I examined the flower, its soft petals, its smallness, and fragility. I thanked her and gently closed my hand around it - this gift of measured grace, a reminder from my child and my God why it is so very worth it.


My girls pick me flowers all of the time, and it seems they frequently hand them to me when I need a pick-me-up the most.


There will be poop. There will be puke. There will be nights when you want to scream out in agony because you're so exhausted. There may, sadly, be far worse: miscarriages, chronically sick children, lost sheep, all sorts of pain. I tell my new moms friends some of this, especially after a friend of mine once told me she wished that people would have been a little more honest about just how tough it was to have a newborn. I try to give moms who ask me what it's like - being a mother - a healthy dose of realism.


But I tell them something else, too. Just as I told my daughter when she was appalled by my job of puke removal, I remind them (and myself at times) that there will be flowers, too. Tender, budding new life entrusted to you - YOU. And if you can look past your solipsism and the endless diaper changes, sleepless nights, tantrums, and the pokes in the eyeballs, you'll see that while love hurts, sometimes very badly, it is what softens you; it is what opens the curtain to the most holy experience, a different kind of hard that never stops revealing that there will be pain that starts from the moment labor begins and sometimes sooner. But there will also be joy. And the joy will be greater than the pain.


And that is what makes it all worth it, my sweet, sweet girl.

Mother of 4 under 5..."saintdom, lookout. Here I come!"

The article begins...

I’m starting to raise sympathetic eyebrows everywhere we go since I now have more than the requisite two kids. “You have your hands full,” strangers comment at the grocery store.

“Here, let me help you.” Knights rush in everywhere to hold doors for me.

Just recently, at a checkout line, a father with one older daughter tagging along beside him looked at me trying to juggle three kids and a full cart and smiled, saying, “Don’t worry. It won’t always be so hard.”

I always appreciate the support and I know everyone means well, and sometimes I need to hear it’s going to get easier. Being the mom to what I gently refer to as “three little black holes of needs” can be physically exhausting.

But you know what I’d also like to hear every once in awhile? That this season of motherhood isn’t some lengthy penance, that I’m not “paying my dues” for days of freedom ahead.

I’m fortunate because all of my family and friends are very supportive of me being an at-home mom and my openness to new life. The same holds true with most of the strangers I encounter when my brood makes a public appearance.

Occasionally, though, I have to deflect a derisive zinger. Like: “You want more?” I even had a mail clerk tell me she’d pray I’d have a boy next time so I could be “done.” And who knows? Maybe I am done. I don’t know how God’s plan for my family might unfold.

Still, it irks me that there seems to be this constant undertone in society that being a mom to little ones is just me “doing my time” and that one day I’ll collect my “get out of jail” card, and I’ll be free again.

I just don’t like the idea that my kids are burdens to be emancipated from and shackles that tie me down.

Of course, there’s a ceiling to my martyrdom. I often say I’m taking life one day and one child at a time. That’s all God asks me to do...

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