All posts by Avivah

Making a flu bomb to cure cold symptoms

health, home remedies

My throat was feeling a little scratchy yesterday morning, so my first activity of the morning was self-care: I made myself a flu bomb.

At this time, when one can so easily be overwhelmed by anxiety or stress thinking about the state of the country/world, I’m finding it helpful to focus on small projects. I don’t have time or headspace for anything big, so I’m talking about small things like cleaning my ceiling fan, binding some of our children’s books that were falling apart, making spice blends – and making myself a flu bomb.

Now, a flu bomb is more of a concept than a specific recipe. Basically, you mix several foods with demonstrated powerful antioxidant/antibiotic/antiviral qualities and then drink up!

I was reminded about the flu bomb when listening to a talk on home remedies by Barbara O’Neil. (I’m making the effort to listen to topics that aren’t related to the war, that I can learn something concrete from. Again, putting the focus on something I can do in the moment.)

Barbara’s recipe is: garlic (as much as you can but three cloves a day is recommended), ginger root (1/4 t.), eucalyptus oil/tea tree oil (1 drop – added note – do not use eucalyptus for children under 10), cayenne pepper (1/2 t.), juice of lemon, 1 t. honey. Grate the ginger and garlic, add the remaining ingredients as well as 1/2 – 1 c. water, and mix it all together. You can strain it and then drink it; this is enough for one flu bomb/one dose.

Over a month ago I decided to be proactive and have my supertonic ready to go if cold symptoms made their appearance in our home. (Some people call this fire cider.) Using my homemade apple cider vinegar as a base, I added garlic and chopped onion and let it steep for a few weeks before straining it out. I didn’t have the other ingredients that are commonly used when making supertonic, like hot pepper, ginger, or fresh lemons, but it’s still really good.

To make a flu bomb, I decided to use my supertonic as a base. I didn’t have fresh ginger or cayenne pepper (to remedy my pantry lapse I bought a kilo bag of powdered ginger and cayenne today), and though I put my bottle of tea tree oil on the counter with the intent to add it to my mix, I inadvertently placed it where it was obscured and couldn’t find it until two hours later when I no longer needed it. 🙂

Keeping it simple, I didn’t chop or mince or grate anything. I blended my infused apple cider vinegar together with five cloves of garlic, two peeled lemons, a sprinkle of powdered tumeric, some water and a teaspoon or two of maple syrup. I chose to drink the blended mixture rather than strain it; again, that’s me keeping it simple. You can strain it!

I drank more than half right away, and put the rest in a bottle to have later in the day. I liked the flavor – it’s like a lemonade with some kick – and definitely felt the benefits within a few minutes: my throat felt better almost right away and my slightly raspy breathing quickly became normal.

I saw the suggestion to prepare the flu bombs in a large batch, then freeze them in mini muffin pans; you add hot water when ready to drink. That’s a good idea. When I blended the lemon, it tasted fine when I had it right away, but by the time I had my second dose, I it had been in the fridge for hours and became bitter. Freezing it right after making it would probably avoid that issue.

Having said that, I liked the freshness of it and time and energy allowing, would prefer to make it right before drinking it.

In addition to the ingredients I listed above, you can also add in black pepper or cinnamon. Black pepper and tumeric are a good combination and advised to use together since they work synergistically together. I’ve seen radishes recommended as something that cuts phlegm and even bought some to have on hand for this purpose, but they don’t stay fresh forever and by the time I was making my flu bomb, the radishes had already been eaten as a salad. 🙂

When do you take a flu bomb? You can use it when you feel cold symptoms coming on or when you’re already sick; it’s helpful for bronchitis, flu, sinusitis, asthma or any upper respiratory complaint. It’s recommended to take it twice a day; how many days you take it depends on if you’re already really sick when you take it, but usually three days is enough to have you on the mend.

Isn’t it nice that you can whip up something so helpful from ingredients that are probably sitting in your kitchen right now?

Avivah

Keeping it real…I am worn so thin

personal development

It’s been an intense three weeks.

Actually, it’s been an intense six months.

When the twins came, I shared about how intense that was. There was one week at the end of June when all four of the younger children were in school at the same time, and that was a relief. I can’t say it was a quiet week since I spent three of those six days attending end of year parties in different cities for different children, but that was my big quiet chunk of time in this last six months. Ds6.5 and ds11 began their summer vacation in the beginning of July; the twins joined them at home for all of August. Having four children with special needs at home is a lot.

When the school year began, one of the younger four children stayed home from school for whatever reason almost every day. Then it was the holiday period, during which we hosted our mothers as well as all the married children and grandchildren for the the entire holiday (23 people plus two newborns for every holiday meal, plus a full house for all of the intermediary days). It was an enormous amount of work and I simultaneously thought about how grateful I was for all the busyness, and how very much I was looking forward to some downtime to unwind from the months of ‘being on’ for so many people.

Some news trickled in on Simchas Torah but it was immediately at the outset of the holiday that we were hit by the news of the brutal massacre of civilians in the south, and then the beginning of the war. I think it’s accurate to say that’s been an emotional weight on every person in this country.

There was no school throughout the country for about two weeks; the first shortened school day for our youngest four children was on a Monday (Oct. 23). That made it possible for me to visit my mother in the hospital in Jerusalem after she had been there for over a week. The next morning one child stayed home, while I fielded calls from the social worker about setting up a plan about how to support my mother when she left the hospital.

On Wednesday (October 25), all four of our children had school for the full day (until 2 pm) for the first time. That was fortunate since I was able to leave at 4:45 am to travel to Jerusalem and bring my mother to our home after her release from the hospital, getting back with five minutes to spare before needing to pick the twins up from school.

My mother needs a lot of support at this time, but I’m hopeful that in a few weeks she will regain her strength and be able to return to living independently. While my mother isn’t a demanding person, she needs physical assistance, as well as help filing paperwork for services that she needs; regular meals that need to be cooked and served; and I still have my very wonderful children with a lot of needs to take care of.

In a comment some time ago, someone wrote that apparently I have a high capacity to have people around me all the time. While it’s true that I’ve developed a higher capacity than I would have if I had a smaller family, I nonetheless need quiet time for myself to rejuvenate, and that’s been almost completely missing for close to six months. I’m physically and emotionally tired, and while I’m not at the very end of my rope, I’m feeling worn thin.

The lack of time to myself is a real issue and while I try to continue to do what needs to be done without getting overly emotional or resentful about it, sometimes I just want to be left alone. It is very, very hard to have personal space in my life at this time; as soon as I finish with one person, the next person is ready for me to be with them – from early morning until late at night. (This is actually how I became a night owl once I had teens – teens like to talk late at night, and in order to spend time with them and still have personal time, I would stay up until after they went to sleep at midnight to have time by myself. I made a huge effort to reverse that about eight years ago and love getting up early now, and don’t want to go back to staying up late as a solution.)

Regardless of how much I do, I’m still left with the feeling that what I’m giving isn’t enough for anyone. I’m just accepting that’s how it is right now.

I’m not going to write all about the importance of self-care and personal time, and how I’m managing to find that even in the middle of this. I think about that, I’m trying to find ways but right now I have fragments of time to myself and it’s very far from enough. That’s my reality right now. I’m doing the best that I can, I focus on my many blessings and…I’m depleted.

Though by the time evening comes I’m pretty worn out, fortunately night is followed by morning and each day I start the day with somewhat fresher energy. In every tough time and situation, dark is followed by light. Even when you can’t see it, the light is coming.

Avivah

Updated list of hostages for prayer, prayer without overwhelm

personal development

I’ve been praying for each of the hostages individually and as a group every day, and last week shared the incomplete list that I was using. The list here seems to be the most updated, with the names missing from the last list now available. (It looks to me that the names of the two hostages that were freed yesterday have been removed.) I tried to load it here for you but it’s saved in a form that doesn’t allow downloads. I was able to print it out from the site linked.

While we understand intellectually that each of the hostages is an individual, reading each name can be very emotionally evocative. Some find that the emotion it brings up allows them to pray with more intention and focus, but others will be overwhelmed by the intensity of feelings that may come up.

If it’s too much for you to pray for the individuals, please say a general pray for their well-being and safety. There is no benefit to becoming emotionally overwhelmed by the thought of the suffering, and there’s no room for guilt about not using the list since there is no right or wrong way to pray.

When I use this list, I feel like I’m doing something concrete to help our suffering brethren. I find it powerful and helpful for me. Please take your emotional pulse and see what feels like the right way for you to pray for those suffering, and then do that.

And for those overwhelmed by their own desire to pray and do good deeds, but not managing to do it – it’s okay to think of our hostages while trying to be a calm and loving spouse/mother/individual. The entire Israeli society is so stressed right now and you can feel the tension everywhere you go. I think this is a situation of the airplane oxygen mask – first be sure your emotional equilibrium is set, and then tend to being of service to others.

Avivah

An interesting ‘chance’ meeting with a daycare manager

parenting

Many, many families have evacuated the northern and southern parts of Israel. An extended family from an area closer to the northern border is staying at a home a couple of doors away, and several days ago I went to welcome them and invite them to bring their young children over to see our animals and/or play.

Late this afternoon, two of the mothers came with one young boy. We were chatting when dd6 came over and asked them where they’re from. “XXX city”, one said.

Dd6 exclaimed, “Me and my brother are also from there!”

Then dd6 said to the woman, “I know you from there!” (She is very good with visual details.) The woman paused and looked at her closely, then at ds6, then back at dd. In disbelief she responded, “Yes, you do know me from there!”

She glanced at me and in an undertone said, “Are they living with you now?” I nodded.

The twins wanted to show her the swings and have her push them, and since I didn’t want to discuss anything referencing their placement while they could hear, we didn’t continue talking at that moment.

When the children switched to riding scooters and were making too much noise to hear what we were saying, she told me that she manages the daycare they attended the year before last. That year was the first time the daycare participated in a program servicing children from high risk homes, where children are placed at the recommendation of social services. This woman knew the complexities of their background and their behaviors; she knew their parents and even their grandmother. who had periodically come to pick them up. They attended this daycare for a year, until the day they were removed from their parents’ home and moved to a different city.

She described how extremely neglected they were and said she was so glad to see how happy and calm they looked now.

I was glad for the twins to have this small point of connection with someone from their past.

Isn’t it amazing what a small world it is?

Avivah

My shiva visit to a family of a young man murdered, prayers for the hostages – names included

personal development

Last night I did something I’ve never done before – I went to a shiva of a family I didn’t know at all. When I saw on the funeral notice that the parents of one of the young men murdered at the music festival was sitting shiva fifteen minutes away, it was important to me to go.

My children asked me what I was going to do at a shiva where I didn’t know the family? The victims of last week’s terrible tragedies were mostly not outwardly religious, and it was important to me as an individual and also as a representative of the charedi community to share that all of us are crying over the loss of their children – we are one people and their loss is our loss.

So I went. I couldn’t tell who was sitting shiva when I went in, as I didn’t see anyone sitting in a low chair or wearing a torn garment. The atmosphere was different than shiva houses I’ve been to in the past, and I didn’t see the mother at first. Finally I asked someone where she was and went inside to speak with her for a few minutes.

Before leaving I said the sentence traditionally recited before leaving a shiva house:
Hamakom yenakhem etekhem betokh shaar avelay tziyon viyrushalayim – May the Omnipresent comfort you among the rest of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. She looked quizzical when I said it, and I wondered if I was saying something unfamiliar, even though shiva began several days ago. I had presumed until this visit that shiva customs were universally observed. In the future I would preface the phrase with a one sentence explanation.

This is a family and group of friends that identify as ‘leftists’, as I heard one of them say as I walked out. I’m not a political person and don’t like definitions that separate people but we live in a world where these identities can too easily obscure the person himself. While I did look and feel out of place, I’m nonetheless glad that I went and would encourage others to do the same. Unfortunately there are hundreds of shiva houses around the country right now and if you live in Israel, one is going to be in your proximity. The Jewish people is one family, and when one of us is hurt, all of us cry. I think there is some comfort in knowing that even those outside of one’s immediate sphere shares their loss.

*****************************

There are 164 199 (edited: higher number reported later in the day) Jewish hostages that were taken by terrorists into Gaza, including infants, young children and the elderly. We hope that more people will not be added to that number. Until today I was saying my own generic prayer for protection and safety for them all. When I saw this list with the name of each person listed, I was glad to have it so that I can pray for each of them individually.

Edited to add: I don’t know the source of this list; I don’t know how it was compiled and undoubtedly there are errors. There are people who may be listed who have since been found killed; there are hostages whose names are not listed. This seems to have been compiled last week and every day we are learning more and more. I’m sure there are errors – no one should consider this definitive. It’s what I’ve seen available at this point and it’s what I’m using until I see something different. My thought is that if I pray for someone who was killed, or someone who was hurt and later found, those prayers will still benefit them/their souls. My intention is to be of service in some small way by suggesting prayers are offered for these people; please don’t be upset at the lack of accuracy.

There is nothing- nothing – nothing – more powerful any of us can do than pray for the safety of all of these hostages.

If you prefer to pray for them in Hebrew, the list of names is below. I printed out a page of names for each of our family members to keep in their siddurim/prayer books.


At a time when we feel powerless and our ability to help seems almost non-existent, know that you can pick up this paper, ask Hashem/G-d to help these people, and read their names. It will take just a few minutes but the spiritual impact is enormous. No prayer is ever wasted, even if we don’t see the immediate desired result.

Avivah

How we’re managing the war situation right now

personal development

Throughout Sukkos, there were a number of things I thought of writing about when the holiday was over, but all of those things faded into the background with the reality of war suddenly upon us.

Several times I’ve sat down to write but I don’t have time to finish my thoughts, and by the time I sit down again, whatever I wrote no longer seems relevant.

Thank G-d, our immediate family is fine. Unrelated to the war, one son had emergency surgery a few days ago and is doing well. My mother was hospitalized on Shabbos, released and is back at the hospital today, accompanied by my oldest son.

Here at home my nerves are a bit frayed. The constant sound of fighter planes in the sky, day and night since last Saturday night begins to wear on the nerves. Though honestly, it’s mostly my thoughts that are wearing. If it was all light and unicorns in Israel at this time, the sound of the planes wouldn’t be more than annoying at most.

We’ve set up our secure room and moved all four of the youngest children there so they are all sleeping there; that way we don’t have to wake them and move them if there’s an alert in the middle of the night. So far we’ve only had two alerts and since I was running late that evening, none of the kids were yet in bed. (Right after that we assembled a second bunkbed for the safe room to accommodate them all.)

I’m super grateful that in the five months the twins have been with us, they have dramatically calmed down. They still take a lot of emotional energy but it would have been extraordinarily difficult to have them home all day and deal with their heightened levels of anxiety and fear if this had happened in the early days of them being with us.

Many, many families from the south and north are moving to areas further from the immediate danger. Less than an hour ago I sent our phone number to a community rabbi in the south and let him know we can host a large family. I’m waiting for him to be in touch with me.

We are such a tiny, tiny country. We talk about the north and south, as if those areas are really far from everywhere else, when actually nothing is that far from the areas that are seeing active war. I’m approximately 130 kilometers from Lebanon; that’s not much more than an hour drive. Yet I feel so lucky to be so ‘far’.

The kids are all home; I haven’t told any of them about the larger situation. Since schools were cancelled on the first day after the holiday when the kids were supposed to go back, I just told them it’s still vacation. They’ve asked about when they’re going back to school but I can only say that I don’t know.

My four older boys immediately ended their vacation and began learning full-time at a local yeshiva for the spiritual war effort. My 21 year old is planning to go back to yeshiva today, and my 17 year old is supposed to go back tomorrow. I’d really rather my 17 year old stay here for now. He’s mostly alone in a dorm at night and that’s a lonely place to be at the best of times but at a time of war, would be alarming.

Last week we had a family meeting with our older boys to discuss our spiritual and physical approach to what is happening. As I told my children at the very beginning, war is good for two things: unity among the Jewish people and spiritual growth and connection to G-d. We began our meeting by listening to this fifteen minute talk about a spiritual approach to helping with the war. We discussed ways we could strengthen ourselves as a family spiritually and agreed on a few things.

At this time that people are staying close to home, I’m fully aware how fortunate I am to live where we have enough outdoor space to keep the kids occupied much more easily. I am grateful for all of my blessings.

At the same time, in the last few days I’ve felt like I’m moving through mud. Slow, lethargic, not efficient at all, physically present but not fully emotionally present with the kids. I was frustrated with myself, until I recognized that this is an emotional side effect of what is going on. Despite refusing to look at even one video of the atrocities and keeping my news intake limited, my mind is filled with thoughts of those affected, particularly the hostages.

At the same time, life as normal goes on. As I am writing this, rain began pouring down for the first time in over seven months. I got up to take out raincoats for each of the younger kids. Now they’re dancing delightedly in the rain, while upbeat music is playing throughout the house. It’s all so pleasant and joyful, and I want it to be like that.

It’s a lot of emotion to juggle.

Avivah



Foster care – doctor visits and filling in missing medical information

parenting

When children come into foster care, there’s often a need for neglected doctor visits and dental care to be tended to.

One of the first things I was told by the social worker after the twins’ placement was to get dd6 a hearing test. I took her to the doctor, got the referral for the hearing test, and then submitted it for an appointment. Soon after I was told it was denied because she had a hearing test just a few months before, and that I needed to be in touch with her past foster mother for the results.

Since the results of the hearing test weren’t submitted to the doctor, it wasn’t on her record. I don’t know if their social worker wasn’t notified that it was done or she didn’t notify the committee, but that’s the kind of thing that can happen with foster care. Happily, otherwise all is well with her.

Next, I took ds6 to the doctor to get a baseline checkup for him. It turned out to be very very fortuitous that the local pediatrician on their health plan is actually a pediatric endocrinologist. She requested labwork for him, and when it came back normal, told me she wants to run more tests. Most doctors would have left it at that – his numbers are ideal so there’s seemingly nothing to do.

Since this is her area of expertise, the perfect bloodwork creates another questions and she wants to determine if daily medication is actually necessary – is his blood work perfect because he has the ideal medication amount or does he not need medication at all? There’s nothing in his medical record that indicates why he was given this medication or diagnosis; when there’s an issue like this there’s supposed to be blood work done every three months. His last blood work was in 2019, over four years ago.

She gave me a list of tests he needs; none of which could be performed in either of the two cities a half hour drive away for several months. Since I didn’t want any further delays in having this taken care of, I took the earliest appointments available, regardless of distance. That resulted in an hour and a half drive for the first appointment, only to be told that I needed an additional doctor to do this test with the technician, and that doctor wasn’t available at that location. Not only that, the receptionist didn’t know when or where or how I could schedule an appointment with both of these people simultaneously if I called the scheduling hotline.

The receptionist was very apologetic and so helpful. Early the next morning she took the initiative to directly contact the only technician in the health clinic staff who has the expertise to perform this testing without a physician. She told me that if I got to a different city (also over an hour away) within the next few hours, he would take us without an appointment. I had plans for the morning and all the kids were home, but off we went, hoping to make it before it was too late. Thankfully we made it.

I took those results back to the pediatrician. That test brought up another concern that necessitated a visit to a different specialist in – yes – a city over an hour away. I was able to get an appointment a couple of days before Rosh Hashana. She was an older Russian physician, who harshly asked me why I waited until he was six to take care of something that should have been done when he was two. I covered the ears of ds6 and told her I’m his foster parent and am trying to get all of this taken care of as quickly as I can. As soon as she heard that her judgmental attitude and icy demeanor dissolved.

The next morning I took him to the dentist to get his teeth checked out. Amazingly, he had no cavities. I don’t even understand how that’s possible but I was so relieved. Afterwards we did some shopping together to make it a special Mommy outing for him, before taking him back to school. It’s always nice to have one on one time with children, and he loved it.

The most recent specialist visit resulted in a referral to a hospital procedure that ds6 will need. The last time I called this hospital I spent twenty five minutes waiting for a person but did get someone, and hopefully by the end of this week I’ll have that appointment made.

As far as hospital appointments, I’m still waiting to have a different test scheduled at a different hospital. (The hospital closest to me doesn’t perform this testing for children under ten.) It took a month of calling until I got a live person to tell me that I needed to submit the referral by fax or email. To do that, I had to return to the doctor and request that the referral be printed out since the hospital can’t access the computer records, then have it sent it. It’s been several weeks and I haven’t yet heard back from them.

Once I have all of this testing completed, I can go back to the pediatrician to evaluate what is going on with him. It’s been really busy taking care of all of this on top of the other things going on, but I’m so appreciative of her thoroughness and expertise, and hope that soon we’ll have resolved the issues that need to be addressed and have clarity about if there’s anything else he needs to stay healthy.

Avivah

Bio parents first visit

parenting

The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy and left me with little time or energy to share with you here.

Some of you have asked for feedback after my last post about how d6.5’s first visit with his birth parents went.

Before the meeting, my husband told me his intention is to restore the dynamic of trust and communication we had with them at the very beginning. We jointly agreed to adopt this attitude, and both of us communicated with them in this spirit.

It took a lot of courage and emotional energy to have this meeting, but I’m glad we did. The meeting went very well – it couldn’t have gone any better. Of course ds was very cute and engaging because that’s how he always is, and they seemed to enjoy seeing him.

At one point, ds said to his birth mother, “When I was a tiny, tiny baby I was in your tummy.” He was waiting for confirmation and when I glanced at her I saw she didn’t understand what he said, so I repeated what he said. She looked a little misty eyed at that, but nodded at him.

I told our social worker when they initially said they would come for a visit but didn’t update her when we made more concrete plans because: 1) I was emotionally drained thinking about it and didn’t want to discuss it, and 2) I wasn’t sure they would show up. She was shocked when I confirmed they had actually come.

Since his bio parents until now hadn’t shown an interest in being actively involved, the committee recently decided they want to push for us to be allowed to adopt him. Since this decision was predicated on their uninvolvement, my social worker expressed concerned that beginning visitation will affect the negatively impact the adoption discussion. When I made plans for them to meet him I knew this could happen but nonetheless felt a person deserves to know his roots and it would be selfish of me to deny him that if I had any way to impact them being part of his life.

I’m so glad we did it. Buried in the back corner of my mind has been the concern about how and when to broach this topic, and now it’s openly on the table and we can talk about them freely with him.

We asked them if it would be okay to take a couple of pictures of ds with them, so we can print them out and add them to his personal album of his birth and early months. They agreed, and I sent them the pictures as well. They sent me a pleasant email thanking me for the pictures and said they had enjoyed the visit.

Will they come again? I didn’t ask them, but did tell them we would welcome regular visits of whatever frequency they are comfortable with. They bought ds some treats and when he said something about them buying him more ‘tomorrow’, I told him they weren’t going to be there the next day. His bio father hastened to add, ‘next time’. So hopefully now that the ice has been broken, more visits will follow.

Thank you all for the good thoughts and prayers on our behalf. I’m sure they were a positive force for us all!

Avivah

Making the decision to stay home with my children

parenting

I mentioned recently that August was a milestone month in a number of ways for us. It’s a milestone in an additional way, one that I was thinking about a lot when I went to see my newest grandson for the first time a few weeks ago.

As I was holding him, it occurred to me that he is the third child of my third child (also born in August). We made a huge, life changing decision when my third child was born, a shift that affected everything in our family that happened ever since then.

Until that point, I was the breadwinner in the family. My husband was a full-time avreich (Torah student), and we lived a very idealistic, simple and mostly happy life.

The issue that was becoming more and more of a conflict for me was needing to rely on others to care for my children. When I had to go back to work after the birth of my first child, I looked for a babysitter close to my office. Our baby traveled an hour in each direction with me from our home to my office, snug against me in a baby carrier. I worked from 8:30 – 1:30; I nursed him when I dropped him off at and picked him up from the babysitter (a lovely woman who was the mother of six children). Mid morning my babysitter would call and say, “Avivah, your baby is hungry,” and I’d dash out to nurse him.

When he was young toddler, he started gan (preschool). A van would come to pick him up and drop him off. We took him to one neighbor in the morning who put him on the van since we had to leave before it came, and then a different neighbor would take him off the van, since I wasn’t yet home at that time. I’d get home around 2:45 pm, and then I’d spend the rest of the day with my two little children.

Until that point, I took my children to private babysitters who were neighbors or friends who cared for children in their home. It was a home environment, there were a limited number of children, and it was just one caretaker other than myself, minimizing the attachment difficulties for a young child. It was as good a setup as I could find and though I didn’t love it, I overall felt fine with it.

However, I felt increasingly concerned about my son. One day I got a call from the morning neighbor who saw my son had been dropped off in the afternoon on the sidewalk in front off our building, and the afternoon neighbor I was paying to take care of him didn’t get him. He was left standing there, 2 3/4 years old, not knowing who was going to take care of him and unsure where to go, until the morning neighbor took him in and then called me.

I was on the bus home when I got this call, and it tore my heart. There was literally nothing I could do about it at that moment. I didn’t read any books or get any message anywhere, from anyone, that maybe something wasn’t good about this kind of childcare arrangement. After all, this is the kind of thing all working mothers had to do, and I was fortunate to work it out as well as I did.

Rationalizing aside, I had a strong gut feeling that this was too high a price for a small child to pay, and that day, I told my husband, I can’t and won’t do this to our son anymore.

I was also exhausted all the time and though only in my early twenties was constantly wondering, “Is this what my life is supposed to be like, racing on a hamster wheel?” I had a decent job that I enjoyed, I had a wonderful husband and adorable children, and a job I did well and got positive feedback for on a daily basis. It didn’t make sense to give all of that up, did it?

It was two months before I was due that we made the decision that when our baby was born, I would stop working. How would we manage financially? Well, with three children ages three and under needing childcare, that would have taken 3/4 of my income, so I wouldn’t be coming home with that much once I paid all the babysitters. When we did the math, we figured out that if we would simplify even more and my husband could get tutoring work, we could make ends meet.

That’s what we did. It was tight but the feeling of happiness I had when every day, I put my own son on the preschool van in the morning and later in the day took him off, was euphoric. It felt right.

Being home with our children continued to feel right throughout the years – I’m not saying it was always easy and I was continually glowing with happiness, because it wasn’t and I wasn’t. Periodically there would be life circumstances that would cause us to reevaluate if this was still something doable for us, but my husband and I continually came back to the decision that it was best for our children that I be home with them full-time.

That was a long time ago – my third child just turned 27. Now it’s my own children that have to make the tough decisions that we faced about working with young children.

When I think of young families today, my heart goes out to them. Even if they have an awareness of the importance for young children of being with their primary caregiver around the clock, logistically it’s so daunting for them.

My husband and I made the decision that was was right for our family, and we’ve continued to live simply and frugally throughout all these years to continue to make this possible. We’ve had many experiences we couldn’t have had if I had been spending the bulk of my day working outside of the home. But more than that, I had the inner peace of knowing that I was able to be the primary caregiver for our children and create a sense of stability and consistency throughout the years as we experienced big and small changes.

If you’re living in the modern world, regardless of what community you belong to, you have to be somewhat countercultural to make the choice to stay home with your children. You need to be very intentional and thoughtful to find a way to meet the needs of the children in a world in which working women have become the norm and daycare an option that is seen as just as good as being home with mom. (It’s not.)

Am I critical or judgmental of women who work outside the home? Absolutely not!

What does deeply concern me is that I don’t see the crucially important societal conversation happening about what is best for young children. Children have needs that have clearly been proven to be necessary for their healthy emotional development. We don’t have to guess about this.

We don’t want to make mothers feel bad by bringing up the concern about how children might be negatively impacted if she isn’t able to be present with them for a number of hours a day – but the children can’t speak up for themselves. They literally have no voice. And if a mother has never heard a different perspective or had information shared that might affect how she makes choices, how can she make an informed decision?

I’d like to encourage parents to learn about the attachment needs of young children, and then think outside of the box about how to meet the needs of our youngest and most vulnerable. Maybe you need to work for financial reasons, but is there a way to work from home, or cut your hours, or cut your expenses, or work alternate hours when your children are sleeping? Can parents alternate their schedules to minimize the time children spend in the care of others, or can they be cared for by relatives or friends?

There are no easy answers but my experience has been that it’s worth asking those questions. When you get clarity about what you want, possibilities and solutions you didn’t consider previously often appear.

What benefits children will benefit families, and benefit our society at large. I don’t think having more children grow up with a healthier sense of themselves can be anything but positive! This isn’t an issue of compromising our needs to make someone else happy, or giving up what matters most for something inconsequential. It’s quite the opposite – finding a solution that you know meets the needs of your entire family creates more peace and contentment for everyone.

Avivah

Foster care -Breaking the news to ds6.5 and planning a first visit

parenting

Six years ago we took ds6.5 directly home from the hospital as a very small infant, and in every way he’s grown up as a member of our family. Everyone in our extended family thinks of him as a sibling; no one looks at him as a foster child. As far as we’re concerned, it’s just a technical legal term.

When we had the initial conversation prior to his placement with his bio parents, they indicated they would like to visit weekly, which we warmly supported. We had always assumed we would tell ds6.5 from the time he was very young about his birth status, in conjunction with the ongoing visits. He would grow up with this being an accepted part of his life.

However, there were only two visits when he was a newborn, and then two and a half years later a very short visit. And so the conversation never happened.

As I began researching foster care and adoption trauma about six months ago, I was taken aback to learn that often babies adopted at birth show the most trauma. I couldn’t initially understand why that was. After all, if a baby has known love and security from his first weeks, how could it be possible that sometimes he was emotionally worse off than a child who was abused or neglected and only found a safe home at a later age?

I had to hesitantly tiptoe around the answer, because I lot of emotional resistance to learning more. I didn’t want that to be true. I didn’t want to think that the infant that I had raised from so early in his life, who I slept with on my chest as a tiny baby so he would feel secure and to encourage bonding, the baby I spent two years gathering mother’s milk for from various donors all over the country to keep him as healthy as possible, who we all loved in a whole-hearted way from day one – I couldn’t accept that he could emotionally be missing anything.

It was very difficult for me to listen to and read extremely negative perspectives from adults who were adopted, perspectives I had never been aware of and therefore never considered.

I may have been resistant but my nature isn’t to ignore information I don’t like.

Unborn babies begin to bond with their mothers in the womb. Thus, there is an emotional bond that is broken the moment he is born and his mother isn’t there for him. What has been termed ‘the primal wound’ is the baby’s loss of his mother; he is fully aware of this loss though he will later likely never be able to verbalize or even remember it. This pain can stay with him for life and impact his later sense of self and relationships.

Though I began doing this research because the possibility of the twins coming had been broached, I began thinking a lot about ds6.5 and what this meant for him.

I would love to think that by raising him as we have (and this is what I thought until recently) from as young an age as we did, that we took away the short term pain of the loss he experienced. What I’ve learned is the pain of that loss is forever.

What I care about most is doing what is best for him, and thus, I strongly requested through my social worker that his bio parents visit him. At our meeting, that subject was raised by the social workers and I added my voice supporting that preference. They weren’t interested; the social workers told me they don’t have a way to compel birth parents to see children if they don’t want to.

Soon after his bio father called me and I made a direct appeal, telling him that this is best for ds, that he should know who they are and have a relationship with them. He called me back a few weeks later and told me he and his wife were planning to go away to the north for a couple of days in the beginning of September and would try to visit then.

I asked him to send pictures of them both so that I could begin the process of introducing the topic to ds6.5. He did send a picture, but it took a few weeks. By the time I received it and was able to get it printed out, I had a week until their visit to break the news to ds6.5.

My stomach was in knots thinking about how to go about this.

Fortunately, dd6 made it easier for me. Being a child who came into foster care at a later age who knows her parents, our conversations about family are very different. My daughter gave birth three weeks ago and her family stayed with us until yesterday, so we got to see a lot of them. Dd wanted to know where the new baby came from before she was born, so I told her she was inside her mother’s tummy. (I realize that’s not anatomically accurate but that’s what I say to young children.)

She asked about whose tummy she was in before she was born, and I told her, her imma. I explained that her brother also was in her imma’s tummy before he was born. She was processing this, and then wanted to know which children in my family were in my tummy before they were born. (With my daughter’s family here, she was confused about who were my children and who were my grandchildren.) After clarifying which children were my daughter’s and which were mine, I told her that all of our children were in my tummy and all of my daughter’s children were in her tummy.

“What about ds11 and ds6.5?” she specified. I try not to say something not true and told her they were also my children, then changed the topic without specifically saying ds6.5 wasn’t in my tummy. She went on to ask this question a couple of times more in the last couple of weeks.

Then last week the twins had a visit with their parents and came home with balloons and scooters. Ds6.5 requested to go with them next time to their abba and imma and also get presents.

He’s heard all the conversations going on. I realized that he already has the concept that children can be born to someone else and raised in our family, and he has an association that children can visit their birth parents who will give them gifts. I realized opening up this topic with him could be very easy, that it didn’t have to be the heavy conversation it was feeling like to me.

I printed out a picture of his birth parents as well as a number of pictures of him from the day we first met him and the day we brought him home three weeks later, and put them all in an album. I sat with him and showed him the album, and when we got to their picture, he asked me who they are. I told them, “This is the lady whose tummy you were in before you were born, and then you came home from the hospital to live with Mommy and Daddy.” “Really?” “Yes, really.”

He was very positive about this and went on to show his album to everyone in the family. He showed me their picture later on and told me, “They will be my friends.”

A visit was scheduled a week ago for this afternoon at a local park. Though our home would be the easiest location, I prefer we not meet here. Though I know they’d want to see where he lives and assess all of what we do and don’t have, I want to have some distance. It’s not a reciprocal relationship; why should they know all about my life while sharing nothing about theirs?

They asked if it would be appropriate to bring a gift, and I suggested a scooter, since that’s something ds specifically hoped to get by meeting the twins’ parents. I didn’t want to tell him about this too much in advance. If it was still vacation, I would tell him as soon as he wakes up this morning and talk about it throughout the day with him. But I don’t want to tell him and then send him off to school; that’s too loaded a topic to not be present to process together with him.

I also don’t want to keep him home from school because of this. So I’m going to tell him when he gets home, and then soon after that we’ll go together to meet them.

I get a bit of a pit in my stomach thinking about the ramifications of this. Just like it was hard thinking about how to tell him and then it wasn’t a big deal, this visit could be the same. Not a big deal.

I tend to be very sensitive to his birth mother’s feelings at the expense of my own, and I’m thinking about how to hold that line.

A couple of things were recently said to me by his birth father that didn’t give me warm and fuzzy feelings. One, when I asked him if it was helpful for them to know he was doing well, he responded, “No, that makes it worse. If he’s doing well, he should be with us.”

Secondly, in the next conversation when we talked about the meeting place, I told him I saw it was hard for his wife to meet in our home in the past, and that it would be better in a neutral place. He said, “You have to understand the heart of a mother. She feels you took her child from her.”

The sheer audacity and denial implicit in that statement took my breath away. I don’t remember if I said anything in response. When we initially met they were so grateful to find us and we were the solution to their problem – a baby they weren’t going to keep and there were no suitable (to their mind) charedi families to take him, a baby left in the hospital for eight weeks until he came home with us – but in her mind as time passed, I’ve somehow become the source of her pain.

I think it’s going to be extremely hard for them to see him. We expected he would do much better if raised by us than the average family because of our parenting approach, and he has. He’s amazing. When talking with my daughter about the difficulties seeing how charming he is could present, she asked, “Isn’t there a way you could keep being so cute and smart just for that day?”

My husband trusts them to honor their commitment to us. They told us several years ago that they won’t take him back no matter what, and my husband believes they’ll keep to that even when they see he’s far more advance than they would have expected. I hope he’s right, I keep telling myself that he’s right, that they’re not going to take him away.

I’m doing this because I feel it’s right for ds, but not because this is easy for me. Personally, I would be fine with the status quo of them never seeing him if I believed that was in ds’s best interests. While the likelihood is that this meeting is going to go very well and tomorrow I’ll be able to share how well everything went, right now, I’m in emotional limbo.

Avivah