needy | Unmotherly Insights

Apparently beggars CAN be choosers!

Holiday cheer? A time to give? What’s up with charities this year? Has anyone noticed that everyone who’s asking for handouts this yuletide season has conditions? “Please drop off any unwrapped, newly purchased, non-age specific, genderless toys by December 15th.” Ok, seriously? This is getting ridiculous. I mean every year we try to go through the boys’ toy closets and make piles of good stuff that they’ve outgrown or no longer want to play with. We talk about how important it is to give things away and the boys have to struggle sometimes with wanting to keep stuff that they need to let go of. But they are learning valuable lessons about sharing, giving and helping those less fortunate.

Well, apparently no one wants anything even “gently” used this holiday season. I find that incredibly offensive. It’s not that I’m not willing to buy new gifts for those in need. It’s just that I think they should be grateful for used items as well. Has everyone lost their minds? I mean, the poor and downtrodden only want new items? What’s that about?

I mean, we’re hurting this year, like everyone around us. I’m shopping at resale stores and garage sales. My kids had a much scaled down version of Chanukah this year. But while it’s okay for me to scrounge and save, I should go to Target and shell out full retail for a brand new Barney-mobile for some nameless kid who only wants new toys this year? That’s more than absurd. It makes me just say, “Oh well, guess I just wont give anything.”

That cannot be the message charities are hoping to convey. But why then all the hubbub about “new” or “unopened” toys? My kids have a plethora of rummaged board games, some of which show serious signs of age. But we have just as much fun playing Monopoly with the hand-drawn “Park Place” card we scribbled in yellow marker over a random two of clubs, than anyone playing with the authentic printed version. Come on!

It reminds me of all the times I’ve attempted to remedy the hunger situation when I encounter it in my path. I’ve offered leftovers to people begging on the street. I’ve purchased a dozen bagels or donuts for some sign-carrying veteran asking for food. I’ve even handed over half a bag of groceries upon passing someone desperate off the freeway ramp in L.A. once. And do you know what each of those people did with my food? They threw it out. Because they didn’t want food. They wanted money, for booze or drugs or cigarettes or whatever. And yes, that soured me a bit on trying to help out. So now, I give to reputable organizations. I make tax-deductible contributions whenever I can and I try my best to ignore the sad souls who approach me and ask for aid. I’m sure it looks heartless and callous to my kids. But thrice burned…

It’s the same damn thing. People need to be encouraged to give. But to give what they can, which may not necessarily be ideal or perfect for the person they’re trying to help. People need to appreciate whatever they get. Am I the only one whose ever heard of the proverbial beggar who couldn’t be a chooser? Maybe it does make a better Christmas for a kid to get a brand new Star Wars Lego set. But when people are struggling to do that for their own kids, they’re not likely to do it for a stranger’s.

I’ve taught my children to be gracious and appreciative whenever anyone gives them anything. If they don’t like it, if they already have one, if it comes broken in two, they just smile, say thank you and offer a warm, grateful hug. Maybe we ought to consider teaching that to the myriad of non-profits out there who are only looking for perfectly packaged, officially licensed, unused goodies this Christmas.

A symmetry boggles over a snag.

I am lying in traction at the physical therapist’s office, my lower lumbar spine being gently pulled apart vertebra by vertebra. It’s an incredibly freeing feeling. Elongation, extension, expansion. I feel like we all spend our lives in compression; tightened, condensed, making ourselves smaller. Trying to disappear.

I’ve had issues with my back for years, (ever since I had children, ironically). Sometimes I give up trying to feel better and just attempt to accept a life of constant (yet bearable) discomfort. But then I hear of a new treatment or meet someone who knows someone who went to someone…and I’m back on the case; pursuing a cure like a committed archeologist, unwilling to leave even a single stone unturned. Hence, I am back on the rack in a swanky Scottsdale office, hoping my insurance will pay for this primitive form of torture that may ultimately bring relief.

They say that back problems have to do with support. I believe in that whole “new agey” thing that all physical ailments are related to psycho-spiritual issues we’re facing. The whole support thing makes sense to me. It’s hard to get enough support as a mom. Even with partners who pitch in, relatively well behaved children, and family nearby, life for a mom can feel unsupported when it’s mainly up to us to support anyone and everyone around us.

So the theory says that we manifest a physical ailment in lieu of expressing a tortured emotional state or facing what we deem to be an unacceptable psychological position. I buy that. In our society, it’s a hell of a lot more acceptable to be out of commission for a herniated disc than to have to lie down in a dark room because you’re kids have pushed you to the brink of insanity.

Somewhere along the line we learned that taking care of ourselves emotionally didn’t count nearly as much as our efforts to mend our physical selves and acknowledge our bodily problems. Feelings of helplessness, of being overwhelmed, unsupported, all the things that moms feel, we deemed were weak, needy, unacceptable. So we pushed them aside and donned our supermom capes and set out to show the world how strong, capable and competent we were. But without acknowledging the pain, the fear, the weakness, we become less of who we are . We compress our soles. We make ourselves fit into a role that doesn’t always allow our spirits to soar. And then we feel alone, small, unsupported.

Hmmm…maybe that’s why it feels so good to be in traction, to grow longer, to extend ourselves, to take up more space.

I think I may be on to something.