BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Mother's Day, for me, is filled with a conflicting thoughts & feelings. Party because I struggled over 12 years with almost intractable infertility issues. My own mother had a personality disorder whose negative aspects were focused on me. I never told her I was an infertility patient. I couldn't, it would have brought with it a lot more verbal abuse than I was already taking for simply being alive. Once I finally did have children I realized I would never feel "normal" - I would always be infertile because I could not do easily what most other women do. One thing she said to me a great deal was " you owe me ." Over and over I was reminded that I 'owed her' for working to provide a home for myself & my sibling, raising me and most of all: for having me in the first place. Especially since I was a " freak, a loser, ugly " and " no man would ever want " me. So it was to her tremendous shock when she had this convers...

by Teresa McEntire There are many mothers in the world, both good and bad. I have seen mothers that I wish that I could be more like and those that I think should never have had children in the first place. But what exactly makes a woman a good mother? Anthropologist Margaret Mead has spent years studying children, parents, and the methods used by mothers raising children all over the world. When asked what she considered the most "valuable capacities for a mother to have." She replied by giving five qualities that she feels every good mother must possess. 1. Treats each child as an individual. A good mother realizes that every child is not the same. She understands that children are not just an extension of or born to be a helper for their parent, but that each child is an "individual in their own right." 2. A good mother helps their child set out on their own path . Allowing the child to follow that path, regardless of the mother's desires. Yet at...

Got this in email from a friend and felt it was worth sharing: This is for the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their arms, saying, "It's all right honey, Mommy's here." Who have sat in rocking chairs for hours on end soothing crying babies who can't be comforted. This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes. This is for all the mothers who go hungry, so their children can eat. For all the mothers who read "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then read it again. "Just one more time." This is for every mother whose head turns automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home -- or even away at college. This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words to reach them. For all the mothers of the victims of r...

NOW THAT I AM SICK, WHO AM I? (written in 1998 - by Barbara) In August of 1995 I was diagnosed with Atypical M.S. and it attendants - CFIDS, Fibromyalgia, Toxic Brain Injury, Neurally Mediated Hypotension, Neuropathy and a host of other concurrent illnesses that basically felt like a death sentence. I had been dragged from doctor to hospital to labs and been poked and prodded and scanned so much since that April I was beginning to think I was going to glow in the dark. At first I was relieved to finally have an answer. I wasn’t losing my mind or suffering from a schizophrenic episode. I had been plagued by depression and panic attacks for years and believed this was it again. This is was somehow just another stone on the pile that was my life. And then I was filled with rage that I was still alive. The doctor should have said, “The good news is, it’s not AIDS. The bad news is, it’s not AIDS.” I had suddenly gone from being someone to being another casualty. And I was only 38...