Writing Isaiah Entry #9

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #9

June 2nd 2013

Karen Weideman Parker

What are your expectations of Isaiah as a new being and evolving into the world; how has that changed since you've had Aurora?

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds

You know how we walked together at least once a week throughout last Spring, Summer and Fall? It was still Aurora's first year of life. One thing I remember about that time was your way of questioning. You'd come over with Panera coffee in hand (while I was still scrambling to get out of bed and get ready :) and be with us for a few minutes before we made our way out the door. Almost inevitably the first question you'd ask is: "so what new thing is Aurora doing?" And each time, I'd have a different answer. Things like: she's holding her head up on her own; she's rolling over; she's laughing at concrete things; she's eating solid food; she's clapping; she said 'momma'; she's almost crawling; her hair is growing thicker; she can sit in the bath on her own now; she's standing; she's walking!!! Each week there was a new thing. Your questions, a constant companion, much like you've been for me in the last three and a half years, made me more attentive, more observant, more of a recorder of my own daughter's progress. I would have noticed these developments as they happened, but I'm not sure I would have been as reflective and mindful of them without your prompting. Is this not one of the greatest powers of friendship: that it provides space for mutual reflection and witnessing? That in this space, we become more present to our rapidly moving lives and more present to each other? You are this gift to me, Karen. 

What does this have to do with a new being and evolvement? Everything. 

As Aurora grew up, both in utero, and once she was born, I noticed myself 'checking' her progress vis-a-vis the little charts "they" give you in books, at the doctor's office, in the early childhood center care basket (that was home delivered by my friend Israel Flores). There are these advancements, milestones, that are supposed to correspond to particular phases of development. For instance: at "one month" babies are supposed to "briefly watch and follow objects with eyes;" at "six months" they are supposed to "sit with a little help and roll from back to stomach;" at "fifteen months" they are supposed to be able to find a hidden toy under a cover." How do I know this? Because the "educator developed, parent approved" Guide to your Child's Development chart tells me so! I have found these books and charts and check-lists from the doctor helpful in some ways. But in other ways, I wonder if they aren't conditioning me to have unnecessary expectations of Aurora and Isaiah.  

In the last 4 months I've been participating in the most radical learning community I've ever been a part of entitled BASIC (building alliances sustaining inclusive communities). The community was comprised of about 24ish humans and the content focused directly on the intersectionality of racism, classism, and ableism. I've always had issues with our society's standards of normalcy and what's "natural" (mostly because those standards have harmed me physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually as a gender queer/variant person) but the time I spent with my folks and teachers at BASIC took that long-standing beef to a whole new level. Hearing--both from people in the room and from articles, books, presentations--about the historic and contemporary, concrete ways the medical establishment has rendered and branded disabled bodies insufficient and unworthy (of life, basically) gave me pause as a parent. What does 'healthy' really mean if one does not "meet" standards of health? What does 'proper development' signify to/for those who fall outside that category (and thereby, of course, render that category relatively unstable)? Underlying all of these categories is a HUGE assumption that there is a life course that is natural, predictable, stable and reliable. Of course some of us fall into this so-called normative life course in some ways. But none of us fall into "it" (whatever the fuck it is) in every way. 

When kids are little, or even still in utero, I think we are less mindful of how damaging these kinds of assumptions and categories can be. As adults it becomes all too obvious how the so-called normative life course oppresses us--unless we are insulated by privilege at every turn, but again, I don't think any of us are privileged in every way, so even folks with a whole lot of insulation can experience the oppressiveness of normalcy. Though I hesitate to admit it (because it's in me), I think a part of why we are less mindful of 'normalcy' bullshit when it comes to little ones is because most of us still (partially) believe in the sanctity of normalcy and want whatever we conceive of that normalcy to be, in conscious and unconscious ways, for our children. Even if we are aware of the internalized and externalized shit that comes with holding on to ableism, we all know there's suffering to be had if you're disabled because ableism is a system and the system is real and wicked. Part of parenting is wanting to eliminate the unnecessary suffering of your children and so i think part of ableism itself is the "yeah I get it but I still want to protect against it for me and my own" phenomenon that gets enacted by well intentioned albeit negatively impactful parents. My friend Martha Thawngmung reminds me often that Americans are more obsessed with warding off suffering than others. I guess what I'm saying is that ableist privilege is a bitch, particularly if you live in all kinds of other privileges that block you from seeing that suffering isn't actually the worst thing. Oppression is.

I'm writing about all of this because you've asked about Isaiah evolving into the world. I know one thing: my expectations of normalcy and natural will hinder his evolution if I don't do the work of dismantling them. I want Isaiah to unfold authentically, within the integrity of his own unique bodily system that is unlike any other bodily system on this earth. I want his racial identity and gender identity and bodily identity and his spiritual, psychological, intellectual and emotional capacities to proliferate in the light and levity of freedom. As a parent the best way to do that, I believe, is to see, honor, and support what and who he is no matter how often it changes or how much it surprises or disturbs me. Not what I want him to be. Not what others say he should be. Who and what he is in the concrete becoming he determines for himself in the power and struggle of relations/community.

Will I influence him? Most certainly. But I don't want to control him. I am terrified by the men I know who experienced controlling environments as children and are now controlling entities themselves. I want to avoid creating a controlling masculinity in my son. The world has seen enough of and been devastated too much by that. Back to influence. If I can influence his evolvement in any way, I want it to be along these lines: that he recognize the radical diversity of who he is and the radical diversity of all human beings on this Earth as divine gift and live into that diversity, both personally and communally with respect, hard-work, and liberating love. How can I influence him in these ways? By recognizing as divine gift the diversity of who I am, loving the diversity of my family members as individuals and my family as a unit, by loving the diversity of people in my local, national and global sphere, by living concretely this world-view in how I treat myself and others minute by minute, day by day. At bottom I think we most influence by example. I want to exemplify loving difference/diversity as a parent. This feels like a way to foster good self-esteem in my children, but also a way of fighting hard against tropes of normalcy and naturalism that shatter people's worlds, dreams and relationships with each other and the societies they live in.

This time, when we do our morning walks, and you ask me "what new thing is Isaiah doing?" I cannot wait to answer through a different lens. I will think of his new babblings, behaviors and becomings less in the framework of developmental milestones vis-a-vis the handy-dandy charts/books, and more in the concreteness of who and what he is in his particular uniqueness. It's a different way of looking, a different way of seeing, a different way of being as a parent. I'm not sure I'd be where I am in all of this if it weren't for my people at the BASIC training. I owe them credit for any shifting from oppressive expectations to liberating witnessing that I've done as a parent. This I know: Isaiah will  be a beautiful child of God, like the rest of us, unlike any of us, beautiful child of God.