For Melissa - Week 6

Only way is up;

Heart achingly difficult.

Don’t quit; making it!

Blogger ‘Lyte ;-} Week 6

Melissa Rodriguez

Full disclosure: this post will definitely be underperforming for this week. I took my NCLEX-PN test this morning in Seattle. And of course I’ve been studying pretty much non-stop since class last week. My name is Rebekah Jane Lee and I am now a Licensed Practical Nurse! And it’s a no-brainer of a tradeoff if I lose some  points on this posting. To business!

This has been gestating in my brain since I heard it on NPR’s Radio Diaries last week: http://apps.npr.org/teenage-diaries/#melissa. She's with her two boys in the picture. I suppose one could call it sort of a mini longitudinal study (best possible construction) of several teens that were given tape recorders to haul around for a year. That was sixteen years ago. The same reporter gave them recorders again this last year to see where their lives were now. They were all interesting, but Melissa Rodriguez really caught my attention vis-à-vis the materials for weeks five and six. Let me say at the beginning, she is a very devoted and loving mother and cares deeply about her children. Her greatest desire is to provide them with the love and care she never received.

Her mother gives her two years of motherhood and turns Melissa over to foster care. Consider the items of bonding, attachment and nurturing. She’s bounced through several foster homes before ending up in a group home. One thinks of families as dynamic systems and wonders what developmental mile-markers were missed in Melissa’s middle and adolescent years. She runs away at fifteen and mothers her first of two children at eighteen. In 2013 she talks with her first born Issaiah (now sixteen) and tells how much she wanted someone to love and to love her – so many things to discuss about just that statement and situation. It becomes obvious that he has developmental issues, some of which are ameliorated with time and effort. He currently tests out with an IQ of 79; and I wondered how culturally appropriate that test was for this person. His mom says he can remember how to play and move ahead with his video games, but cannot remember what he reads. More questions; and I wondered about the effectiveness/appropriateness of his special education class and the loss of those years of evenings without parental supervision and guidance.

Poor, fairly uneducated and not finding a lot in the line of work, she turns to stripping (early years); and says it was one of the most empowering things she’s done. She had money, apartment and a car; she was able to go to school (I’m assuming a two year) and finishes. And the strip clubs are behind her. She’s been working for some time now as a customer service representative for what seems like a television cable company. A kind of work she really loves. At the beginning of this last year, her hours were three to midnight. I considered what that meant in terms of nurturing her six and sixteen year old boys, who were in school every day. She does call around six PM to check in on them. On one occasion, her oldest says her youngest doesn't want to eat what was supposed to be for supper. He’s advised to just open a can of Chef Boyardee for the lad. I wondered some more about nutrition, family mealtimes and those dynamic family relationships; oh, and socialization.

She really loves her work and then says something revealing; I solve other people’s problems all day long and when I come home, I just keep on solving more problems problems. When she arrives home at midnight, the television is going full tilt and young Tyrone is asleep in the same room. She says that's what he does because he’s afraid. I wondered again with questions about identity, self-esteem and the socialization values and behaviors; both formal and informal. Melissa states that she depends on her children and that they “…lean…” on each other.  Hmm! Definitely not an authoritarian or authoritative parenting approach; permissive perhaps, at best.

Her diary ends on a somewhat more hopeful parenting note; at work she’s been moved to days, which will enable her to be home in the evening with her children. She is incredibly strong of will, desire and discipline; her teenage camp story of treading water is illustrative. Her extrapolation of that story to life is insightful. What I cannot divine, will it be enough to accomplish her goals for her children. I truly admire and respect her grit and determination; she’s certainly traveled a hard path and overcome so much. I'm not so sure I would have come as far if it was me.

Postscript: This was in the NYT this morning and has relevance re "Tough Guise". Not so sure that change is to significant. The point concerning prosecutions is quite revealing.

RETROREPORT   
Video Library Player:  The Legacy of Tailhook 
Retro Report 
Retro Report: Military sexual assault is not a new phenomenon. A second look at the Tailhook scandal in 1991 reveals what happened then. And what it all means now. 

Pretty Much - Week 5

First one must love self,

Love of others may then follow.

With hugs from the heart.

Let’s Get Real – For a Change :-} Week 5

My childhood was a classic example of absolute patriarchal authoritarianism. I give great credit to my mom (who being of the generation that a woman’s place is in the home and there to serve her husband) who did her best to love and nurture our sibling group of three.  As is often true, I being the oldest also received the more restrictive guidance and attentions. I have no recollection of my father ever hugging me or telling me he loved me. I wondered often what was wrong with me. When I was leaving for college the first time, I took a deep breath, walked over to my dad, hugged him and said I loved him. He never put his arms around me. Whatever relational hopefulness I had maintained for him, was broken on that day. Looking back, all I can add is, he did the best he could from where he’d come.

On the credit side of the ledger, he never abused any of us or our mom. We did get a couple of ‘belt – lickins’ (actually not very severe – more scary); but can honestly say we knew the consequences and deliberately chose to pursue bad decisions; and definitely reinforced the concept of consequences. He was a dentist and very successful. He was an excellent provider, but within the constraints of his depression era childhood. We never wanted for the essentials, but there were few extras. We were allowed almost no personally driven decisions and if we expressed a desire, it was often met with “what in world would you want that (or to do that) for. Besides, what would people think of our family?” It was absolute rule; pretty much lock-down.  I was a walking example of the negative consequences illustrated in our text; except I wasn't aggressive.

I could not have been more ill prepared for parenthood. And yet there I was with a family. Predictably, I set off to follow the example of my upbringing. There was one small (in the beginning) off-setting factor. Somehow I was profoundly aware of how inappropriate my upbringing had been and also had some misty concept that I might walk the same path. I tried, mostly unsuccessful, not to do so, but the patterns were pretty deeply subconscious; almost always automatic and without conscious decision monitoring. My early parenting was better than dad’s, but I would not want to invite anyone to judge by how much!  :-}

There came a sentinel revelation that was instrumental to help me self-redirect. I’d known for some time that string of words: “…love is patient, love is kind…not self-seeking…always protects…” with a few other things in there. All of a sudden it was no longer some ‘truth-thing’ out there in the universe, but was a spot light on just how/what I was doing as a parent. That internalization became the self-check of my parenting decisions: is this kind, gentle, patient, etc? I gradually became an authoritarian parent that began focusing on nurturing the biopsychosocial uniqueness of each child; assisting in their own self-discovery of who they are still becoming.

Well, it’s been a long, winding but rewarding road. Things changed slowly and grew better. Did I mention slowly? Yes, slowly. And over the years, there have been many discussions with my kids about my mistakes and attempted corrections as a parent. I am pleased (perhaps more like relief) that all are doing well, somehow successfully surviving their childhoods and my parenting. Although there were moments of doubt, I do have a great sense of satisfaction in knowing/realizing that change is possible over generations and our little part of the genealogical tree is a little healthier than before.

What Matters? Week 4

Gray and white matter,

Matter connecting to world;

Nutrition matters

That Brainy Feeling or I’m Feeling All Sparkly Upstairs - Week 4

Relax and brreeeeathhhe; no big long crammed-too-full posting this week. But there were a couple of things in the instructor’s notes concerning brain development and cognitive change.

First: a LOT of myelination occurs postpartum; Babinski’s reflex (an upside ‘J’ stroke on the plantar surface of the foot) is normally elucidated in infants up to about a year of age. The reason is myelination of the spinal cord not complete at birth, resulting in a spinal cord reflex action rather than being suppressed by the cerebral cortex (http://bit.ly/UFnyKY). If Babinski’s reflex is noted in adults, it is a sign of spinal cord damage, lesions, tumors, etc. and signals pathology. Also, recall from the text that the human brain is not fully mature until about 30 years of age, especially the executive functions. That’s the stuff Leah mentioned in her notes about frontal/prefrontal lobe development. 

My interest here focuses on nutrition; myelination requires lipids (fatty acids) to occur properly. If the mother’s contains insufficient fatty acids, myelination will slow, placing constraints on developmental milestones. In a rat study, researchers found that dietary fat regulated how well myelination proceeded (abstract here: http://1.usa.gov/ZSicfE). A separate study found that maternal diets (both pre/postpartum) high in these fatty acids, actually accelerated myelination. (They used the term “precocious appearance”; in other words, the reflexes of the baby rats matured earlier and stronger than the control group.) I like words/phrases like that; they are so rich in depth and meaning – like up or down regulation of gene expression. It is clear that proper nutrition pre/postpartum is essential in both mother and baby to achieve proper neural system development. The transfats of French fries, potato chips and snack foods are not the kind of fatty acids that promote myelination.

Here’s a great little synopsis of myelination both in the peripheral/central  nervous systems: http://bit.ly/ZSjZkT.

Gee, the words are starting to pile up :-}

Ok here’s the second: on the pruning part in the notes, I think most of us get the concept: use it or lose it. So, if a neural circuit is busy all day long doing its little job of polarizing/depolarizing it gets to stay. Sort of like a quiet but regularly used side street, say the ‘road’ to your tongue. At first there’s not a lot of traffic, but as time goes by a lot of road construction is underway connecting distant towns like Wernickeville, Brocaville and Middleearville (road map: http://bit.ly/ZSkSKc). 

Pretty soon that first little neuron can’t handle all the traffic, so those glial cells I wrote about last week commence turning the single lane road into a multilane complex to make all the connections. The oligodendrocytes are chatting with the neurons which advise things could go a lot faster with a little blacktop (myelin), and so the oligos punch the clock and get to work. And the more the circuits to various organs/functions are used, the more complex and multilayered the system becomes. And when they’re all done (well, they’re never done), you are able to go talking and walking and looking and turning and listening (no texting pls) to nature’s wonderful world – all at the same time and without hardly a thought about all the processes involved. Well, except if bite your tongue while chewing gum!

And putting that whole complex system together is the result of synaptogenesis, the capacity and efficiency mentioned in Leah’s notes. 

To Reflect Upon.