Separation anxiety and gender feels
Mar. 5th, 2020 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halojedhaE's going through a separation anxiety phase atm. They've spent a couple of weeks being Very Sad if they're looked after by someone other than me. Including an hour of inconsolable hiccupy crying on Leo while I was out at Tai Chi.
So I've embraced my role as Primary Caregiver even more than I was already. The bedsharing is working well. We put E in a nighttime nappy, they cuddle me most of the night and feed a few times, there's no crying. I've got good at sleeping through lying down feeds. The other night I went to sleep with E in the middle and woke up with them on the edge by the bedrail, me in the middle, my boob out. I obviously picked them up and moved them across to my right hand side (my right boob makes twice as much milk as the left) and latched them on in my sleep without waking up. Skills.
I've not been able to go to Tai Chi much - the Saturday morning classes are okay, but the Tuesday evening ones don't work well right now. By that time of night E is tired and just wants to be snuggled on me. I'm feeling equanomous about it. The important thing is giving E the reassurance and consistency they need, otherwise they're just going to get more anxious.
To be clear, Leo contributes an enormous amount. They are an equal partner in this endeavour and I absolutely feel they are load bearing. We do housework together every morning, they take E before work and after work to let me nap or do chores, they do cuddle duty at night whenever it's harmonious. They frequently take time out of their work day to do domestic jobs that need doing or to help me get out of the house on time. They are doing absolutely as much parenting and domestic work as they can.
So E's new insistence that, sometimes, only I will do is challenging for both of us, because we're used to being able to share the load more equally.
It also makes the car tricky. When I'm in the front driving and they're in the back on their own, they feel alone. It's a rear facing carseat for safety. They have a mirror so I can see them, but I'm not sure if they can see me. We've had a few Very Sad drives lately and I really don't like putting them through it. If they want a cuddle I want to be able to pick them up and cuddle them.
The car seat is the only time I don't respond straight away to whatever need they're expressing, and I'm worried they're starting to associate it with Badness. We aren't doing cry it out sleep training or anything, except in the car when I'm on the motorway or stuck in traffic and literally cannot stop. I do my best with talking and singing to them, trying to project calmness and love in my voice, and doing things like opening the skylight or their window to distract them, but when they're really upset, they just want to be held. I've done a few car feeds lately but once I've calmed them down, we still have to get home, and of they cry as soon as I put them in the carseat there's really not much I can do about it. I've been getting public transport more so they can travel in the sling and feed when they want, but that's not always an option.
The separation anxiety thing is probably a developmental phase. They're eight months old - is it possible they're starting to understand that I'm a Whole Other Person who might theoretically be Not There, prompting them to seek reassurance that I am, in fact, there? Is it an object permanence thing?
It's all triggering another layer of gender argh for me, on top of all the other layers. Being a parent is wonderful, I'm happy to breastfeed and to have given birth, and it's okay that E is more/differently attached to me than to Leo or the other adults in our village. Not only did they grow inside my body, I've spent more time with them than anyone else, and continue to do so. Partly because of the breastfeeding, partly because Leo works full-time and I work part time, partly because Leo's hip recovery still won't permit them carrying or slinging E, and so I'm the one who physically wears them and carries them around all the time.
It's nice that they feel safe with me and that they want me. It's also a bit stressful that they depend on me personally so intensely. I thought when we had a baby that Leo and I as two nonbinary parents could split the parenting 50/50. It's not worked out that way - because of breastfeeding, because of Leo's work and Leo's hip, because E has their own ideas about who they want to spend time with.
I've been so firm about working - I started working from home a few hours a week when E was one month old, and am now up to 3.5 days a week - partly as a gender thing. Leo and I were very firm that as nonbinary people neither of us was Mum and neither of us was Dad. Leo is Zaza and I'm Boo, two roles we are defining for ourselves. Leo is immensely maternal and nurturing and says they feel more like a mother than a father. I often feel quite dadly, loading the car, moving heavy things around, cooking meals for the family, playing games with E and making up silly songs and stories, going out to Tai Chi, kissing E on the forehead when I go to work.
My own mum and dad both worked, both fed me, both did housework, both raised me. The genderedness of Mum and Dad, the roles those words symbolise, isn't something I learned from my family of origin but from the wider culture. I see it in the parenting books I read, in the assumptions at the baby classes I go to.
In the culture, "Mother" is this self-sacrificing role, the provider of food and nurture and comfort, the one who puts her own interests and career on hold, the one who's always around. "Father" divides his attention between parenting and work. Everyone else at baby sign class is a mum. Every other parent at the library rhyme time is a mum. Dads only get 2 weeks of paid parental leave. Both roles are hard and compromised and can really suck.
So I'm listening to Sarah Ockwell-Smith's Gentle Sleep Book at the moment. I really like her baby-led, responsive, non-violent, evidence-based parenting advice. She's talking about the importance of babywearing, bedsharing, having enough respect and support for mothers. It's always "mothers". And... I'm not a mother, but I feel sometimes like I'm doing the job of one. We need a better word.
It's two things: there's breastfeeding/gestational parent, that's one thing. That's what Boo means, to me. Then there's Primary Caregiver. The one that's always there. The one that slings the baby, cuddles them at night, spends more time with them. This doesn't have to be the body parent, I know families where it isn't. Neither role is gendered. Non binary people and trans men can bear and feed babies with their bodies. Anyone can step into a primary caregiver role.
But when the two align, that starts to sound a lot like Mother, especially when I'm mistaken for one all the time. It's dysphoric and unsettling and I need to constantly remind myself that being E's body parent and their anchor parent doesn't mean I'm a woman even though a lot of people assume it does.
So I've embraced my role as Primary Caregiver even more than I was already. The bedsharing is working well. We put E in a nighttime nappy, they cuddle me most of the night and feed a few times, there's no crying. I've got good at sleeping through lying down feeds. The other night I went to sleep with E in the middle and woke up with them on the edge by the bedrail, me in the middle, my boob out. I obviously picked them up and moved them across to my right hand side (my right boob makes twice as much milk as the left) and latched them on in my sleep without waking up. Skills.
I've not been able to go to Tai Chi much - the Saturday morning classes are okay, but the Tuesday evening ones don't work well right now. By that time of night E is tired and just wants to be snuggled on me. I'm feeling equanomous about it. The important thing is giving E the reassurance and consistency they need, otherwise they're just going to get more anxious.
To be clear, Leo contributes an enormous amount. They are an equal partner in this endeavour and I absolutely feel they are load bearing. We do housework together every morning, they take E before work and after work to let me nap or do chores, they do cuddle duty at night whenever it's harmonious. They frequently take time out of their work day to do domestic jobs that need doing or to help me get out of the house on time. They are doing absolutely as much parenting and domestic work as they can.
So E's new insistence that, sometimes, only I will do is challenging for both of us, because we're used to being able to share the load more equally.
It also makes the car tricky. When I'm in the front driving and they're in the back on their own, they feel alone. It's a rear facing carseat for safety. They have a mirror so I can see them, but I'm not sure if they can see me. We've had a few Very Sad drives lately and I really don't like putting them through it. If they want a cuddle I want to be able to pick them up and cuddle them.
The car seat is the only time I don't respond straight away to whatever need they're expressing, and I'm worried they're starting to associate it with Badness. We aren't doing cry it out sleep training or anything, except in the car when I'm on the motorway or stuck in traffic and literally cannot stop. I do my best with talking and singing to them, trying to project calmness and love in my voice, and doing things like opening the skylight or their window to distract them, but when they're really upset, they just want to be held. I've done a few car feeds lately but once I've calmed them down, we still have to get home, and of they cry as soon as I put them in the carseat there's really not much I can do about it. I've been getting public transport more so they can travel in the sling and feed when they want, but that's not always an option.
The separation anxiety thing is probably a developmental phase. They're eight months old - is it possible they're starting to understand that I'm a Whole Other Person who might theoretically be Not There, prompting them to seek reassurance that I am, in fact, there? Is it an object permanence thing?
It's all triggering another layer of gender argh for me, on top of all the other layers. Being a parent is wonderful, I'm happy to breastfeed and to have given birth, and it's okay that E is more/differently attached to me than to Leo or the other adults in our village. Not only did they grow inside my body, I've spent more time with them than anyone else, and continue to do so. Partly because of the breastfeeding, partly because Leo works full-time and I work part time, partly because Leo's hip recovery still won't permit them carrying or slinging E, and so I'm the one who physically wears them and carries them around all the time.
It's nice that they feel safe with me and that they want me. It's also a bit stressful that they depend on me personally so intensely. I thought when we had a baby that Leo and I as two nonbinary parents could split the parenting 50/50. It's not worked out that way - because of breastfeeding, because of Leo's work and Leo's hip, because E has their own ideas about who they want to spend time with.
I've been so firm about working - I started working from home a few hours a week when E was one month old, and am now up to 3.5 days a week - partly as a gender thing. Leo and I were very firm that as nonbinary people neither of us was Mum and neither of us was Dad. Leo is Zaza and I'm Boo, two roles we are defining for ourselves. Leo is immensely maternal and nurturing and says they feel more like a mother than a father. I often feel quite dadly, loading the car, moving heavy things around, cooking meals for the family, playing games with E and making up silly songs and stories, going out to Tai Chi, kissing E on the forehead when I go to work.
My own mum and dad both worked, both fed me, both did housework, both raised me. The genderedness of Mum and Dad, the roles those words symbolise, isn't something I learned from my family of origin but from the wider culture. I see it in the parenting books I read, in the assumptions at the baby classes I go to.
In the culture, "Mother" is this self-sacrificing role, the provider of food and nurture and comfort, the one who puts her own interests and career on hold, the one who's always around. "Father" divides his attention between parenting and work. Everyone else at baby sign class is a mum. Every other parent at the library rhyme time is a mum. Dads only get 2 weeks of paid parental leave. Both roles are hard and compromised and can really suck.
So I'm listening to Sarah Ockwell-Smith's Gentle Sleep Book at the moment. I really like her baby-led, responsive, non-violent, evidence-based parenting advice. She's talking about the importance of babywearing, bedsharing, having enough respect and support for mothers. It's always "mothers". And... I'm not a mother, but I feel sometimes like I'm doing the job of one. We need a better word.
It's two things: there's breastfeeding/gestational parent, that's one thing. That's what Boo means, to me. Then there's Primary Caregiver. The one that's always there. The one that slings the baby, cuddles them at night, spends more time with them. This doesn't have to be the body parent, I know families where it isn't. Neither role is gendered. Non binary people and trans men can bear and feed babies with their bodies. Anyone can step into a primary caregiver role.
But when the two align, that starts to sound a lot like Mother, especially when I'm mistaken for one all the time. It's dysphoric and unsettling and I need to constantly remind myself that being E's body parent and their anchor parent doesn't mean I'm a woman even though a lot of people assume it does.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-05 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-05 10:24 pm (UTC)doop was able to do a lot more of the carting-around-physically parenting, and we were both working part-time from the start, but L still had a strong preference for me at that age, I assume because of the milk. The sling did help *a lot* with that, and finding specific things that doop & L did without me (swimming was one of the first ones, but also breakfast!) and also as L got older we found that "out of sight, out of mind" worked quite well. (L would have been ~9 mths when I properly went back to work & I used to hide in my room in between being needed for milk and doop would bring me cups of tea! A couple of years later I wound up renting a desk in an office down the road for a year, as L got old enough to remember I was there, until he was old enough to understand "I'm working right now".) So yeah, it is hard going.
I hear you on the genderedness of discourse around parenting. It was one of the things that pushed me into thinking differently about my own gender, because of the way in which "woman I suppose" suddenly morphed into (being read as/treated as) WOMAN IN A SPECIFIC WAY. It is very frustrating. And it's still the case that almost all of the parenting spaces I'm in are majority female, although another of the parents of our little home ed group of friends came out as nb a while back.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 09:23 am (UTC)Derek was away a lot so I was 'single parenting' for much of the early time. We had no electricity so most tasks had to be tackled in medaeval manner, slowly and without a machine to help. .I walked a mile or so to reach other parents for company and reassurance, some of them men, and from about a year Leo seemed pleased to be with the other toddlers, and explore their toys.
Halo knows all this, but I thought it might be fun to tell the others on Dreamwidth..
Leo and I were very close and cuddly, and I don't think they accepted other people keenly until after the first hospital time at around 2 years.
This sounds daunting, but all babies have different personalities from the start! Our NCT group had a wide selection from placid puds to screaming tyrants, all breast fed, and there was not that much difference in the way they were treated. I found that avoiding the stress of separation was more important FOR ME than riding through it. So I think Halo is doing really well and that E will be a more confident person with this solid security.
Halo's happiness is so important too in all this. A puzzle that possibly only time will solve.
I have a friend who adopted a Romanian one year old out of an orphanage. Now 25 and beautiful and talented she has un govenable anger attacks, usually against boyfriends, sometimes her mother.. Who knows? But the counsellor is trying hard to unravel it all..
How is E in a buggy? And the rain fell..Not much escape there.
This is just a stream of thoughts. I have no solution other than trying E with small times with different people in familiar places. And I am sure you are investigating everything. Living in a small tribe might be good, but hard to organise.
They are going to grow out of it sometime. Halo, you are just too attractive! xxxG
no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 10:48 am (UTC)E is chill in the buggy! Leo took them for a walk in it a couple of weeks ago. No sleep but they did look around with big eyes. I want to encourage Leo to get E out of the house more so they get a bit of a break from the four walls but it's so hard with their hip. Only they know their limits and I don't want to be pushy.
Looking forward to giving E some grandparent time next weekend! Maybe I could even teach one of you how to sling them?
no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 11:12 am (UTC)Hi there Halo! Large hug!
I'm so looking forward to the grandparent time too!
Bring the buggy if you can. Don't think Ember would like the rather big cot that I have, so I'll not get it a bumper and bedding till later, if we want it then? It has a good mattress but nothing else.
Went to see Sue at the farm thismorning, and we talked about the separation anxiety, and everyone's thoughts on it. Sue said that Nathaniel, the latest baby in her life, would not go to anyone at around 9 months, even Sue, and he had seen her and been handled from birth. So N's mum just had to do as he wanted and not upset him.. (All these people are entirely gender specific..)
Sue said that when she had Robert, her son the health visitor said 'get him into a routine..' and she tried. But babies are strong,and don't give up easily. R screamed for hours, and she is still haunted by the memory. Today she said 'I should have had a sling, like they do in Africa, and not put him down..' So you can try the grandparent slinging out on me, and we can go over to the farm, Ember permitting, and she will be most amused and interested.
xxx
no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 10:44 am (UTC)Hiding in office sounds very familiar! I feel nervous about coming downstairs to pee or deliver pumped milk as when E sees me they go from happily occupied to frantically windmilling at me and hooting in excitement. It's adorable, and hard to know how much to engage. I don't want to ignore them, but if I cuddle them it's even harder when I give them back without feeding them...
Having to get a rented office sounds hard! I can imagine that happening for us tbh. We'll see how it goes.
It's not surprising how few anchor parents are dads given dad's basically need to be independently wealthy to fund their paternity leave. I mean I'm all for
supporting breastfeeders but better paternity leave would go a long way towards addressing the genderedness of parenting.
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Date: 2020-03-06 11:16 am (UTC)I guess you could deliver milk down the stairs by a basket on a string or something, but that doesn't really work for going to the loo! I absolutely used to get doop to occupy L and then sneak around to avoid being seen. And strongly encourage Things Involving Going Out Of The House even if just for an hour or two. Hopefully that may become more possible as Leo's hip recovers further?
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Date: 2020-03-06 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-06 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2020-03-08 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-10 10:29 am (UTC)Breastfeeding Arjun has been a totally different experience. I think I have done 95% of the parenting so far - though when I go back to work in a few weeks and Ben does shared parental leave again that will change. It turns out that I resent being preferred parent but I also like it a little bit too.
I don't feel very female most of the time and I also slightly hate being in this sort of environment where it is all very gendered and all about bonding over motherhood.
Having two does make me remember that this time passes really quickly though. I think once you can get a significant amount of time away, it all feels less claustrophobic even if you don't in practice leave your children very often.