Essence magazine once did a spread on the fashion sense of working women during pregnancy, and the television staff was invited to bring our young children to be a part of the photo shoot. What a fun experience for Shani and Wes, I thought, so off we went the next morning to the Essence offices downtown. They had their turns in wardrobe, hair, makeup, and then met with the photographer and model. There were about four or five other kids of the magazine staff and they all had a ball acting like real live models. I knew I was earning mega brownie points in my cool mommy account. But the next days were back to normal, the kids taking on an air of business as usual and ingratitude for an experience so few kids get to have. That’s a lesson I’d relearn time and time again—do what you do for your kids because it’s the right thing to do, not because you expect some giant show of gratitude in return. It won’t happen, at least not at first. The reality is that kids learn gratitude from observing how we respond, and often do not express it in the moment. But as long as we’re consistent with expressing our gratitude to others and to them for the things we are able to accomplish together, they’ll learn gratitude in time. As I became more confident in my parenting skills, I hung on to the belief that by twenty or so, their gratitude gene would finally kick in, along with all the other civilities teenagers seem to bury when they are thirteen. Thank goodness, I wasn’t wrong!
When we are in the thick of it, in real time, carrying the stress of the day and the burden of our worries into our house, it’s hard to play the long game. We turn on our children and lose our hearts as well. During those maniacal times, I wasn’t fully present because my head was swirling and my pride was telling me I was losing. I was so caught up in where I was trying to get us that I wasn’t focused on where we were as a family.
Dr. Shefali Tsabary, clinical psychologist and author, says, “To parent consciously we have to become astute observers of our own behavior when we are with our children. In this way we can begin to be aware of our unconscious scripts and emotional imprints as they arise in the moment.” My moment of reckoning with my own actions came when I was doing my regular writing for Essence: The Television Program and a friend asked me to help with a short-term writing project. At the time, I was also working on a fairly regular basis with the furrier James McQuay in his downtown salon and alternately in his Mount Vernon salon with his wife, Doris. I was stretched razor-thin. I saw the kids in the morning when I took them to school and kissed them when they were fast asleep when I got home at ten o’clock or so. My brother and his wife, Pam, lived right next door so Wes and Shani would usually do their homework and eat at their house and stay until I got home; if it got too late, one of them would come over and stay with the kids until I arrived. Years later Wes would say that his only comfort during that period was the smell of my perfume when I kissed him good night as I got home. While I thought I was handling this juggling act adequately, I began noticing that the morning routine was getting harder; tempers flared more easily, there was more bickering in the car on the way to school, and collectively my kids just seemed angry—at each other especially. One especially rough morning, after I dropped the children off, I sat in my car for about half an hour and put myself on pause to answer these questions. What am I doing to them, and to myself? Are they just trying to get my attention because they know this is the only time of the day they can get it? Is the reality that they aren’t angry at each other but are really angry at me? I realized that the precious few hours I had with them were being wasted on tension and resentment. I was pushing them away rather than bringing them closer. And in the end, my outbursts would change nothing—that wet towel would still be on the couch, the paper unwritten. I needed to reconnect with my top parenting priorities and spend more time enjoying them—I needed to remember that my most important job was raising children ready for the world and that couldn’t always include saving all the wet towels from mildew!
I wanted to provide for my children and was going about that by working myself to the bone. But it was at the expense of my relationship with each one of them. When I took a step back and examined what was at the heart of the situation, I realized it was my time that my children were craving. That day I stopped everything but my job at Essence. I was worried that we’d hurt financially if I cut back on the extra work but I actually ended up having more money for the household because I cut down on parking fees in the city, eating out, babysitting charges when Howard and Pam weren’t available, and on taxes. Sometimes I did miss some of the interaction I had with folks on those other projects, but it didn’t compare to the satisfaction of being with my kids and their happiness at having me home more.
After that morning in the car, I made a habit of literally catching my breath on my way in the door. It got me back into my heart space and out of my overcrowded head space. And when I could connect with my heart, that place where I loved my kids unconditionally, I could parent with greater effectiveness.
Every evening before I put my key in the door, I put down my bags to settle myself. Yes, I embraced the mindfulness practitioners and concentrated on being aware, eyes closed, feet planted firmly on the ground, and taking a deep breath. When I turned the key and heard the click of the lock opening, I took another big breath and put—or sometimes forced—a smile on my face and envisioned my large exhale expelling all the negativity I had endured throughout the day. That simple ritual made a difference. Today we have science that proves putting on a smile, even when we don’t feel like it, can trick the brain into thinking we are happy. I know from experience this is true! My smile, while put on, became genuine as the hours ticked away toward bedtime.
I felt a little more present for my kids’ needs and less reactive to their behavior. And I was more open to making a connection, even in those messiest of moments at the end of a long day.
We can all relearn to be present by shifting our perspective and making a conscious effort to leave our negative thoughts behind. Psychologists call this boundary work: devising routines and rituals that provide a mental space between the day’s challenges and the evening’s gifts. Boundary work does just that—sets boundaries so that work doesn’t invade your home and home doesn’t invade your work. The end result is absolute presence. Drawing the line in the sand begins with you, and doing so can save your heart—and your home—in the long run.
LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Dedicate time to building your boundaries.
Figure out how you can make a smooth transition from your working self to your mommy self in order to be fully present for your children. Some people create a sort of buffer zone during their last thirty minutes at work, not taking calls or scheduling meetings, to begin to slowly transition out of “the zone” and into the home. Other people like to stop at a store before going home, creating a physical transition space, while many find visualization a helpful mindfulness technique, such as mentally picturing work concerns being dropped into a box and then shutting the lid. This can be helpful whether you’re leaving a boardroom, a classroom, or a factory floor. One thing I used to do if I was unable to decompress prior to walking through the door was to say, after I kissed each of my kids hello, “Okay, it’s been a tough day so I need a time-out for myself—just for a little bit. I’ll be a much better ‘me’ when I come out of my room.” I didn’t do it often, so they took it seriously when I did; they knew to give me the space I needed, and I would emerge mind and heart ready to be present for and with them.
A Heartbeat Away: The Rama Chakaki Story
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.
—Philippians 2:3
Rama Chakaki was sixteen years old when her parents decided to make America their home. Following the American dream and an opportunity for Rama to begin college, she and her younger brothers and sister immigrated to the United States from their adopted home in Saudi Arabia. Having escaped the escalating tensions in their home country of Syria years before, the family moved to a suburb of Washi
ngton, DC, where Rama’s father began a successful career as a real estate developer. Rama, a recent graduate from an all-girls high school in Saudi Arabia, started classes at the then all-women Marymount College in Arlington, Virginia.
Eager to pursue a medical degree, after one year at Marymount Rama transferred to and eventually graduated from George Washington University. She then went on to earn a master’s degree in engineering management. As she was about to start her studies as a medical doctor, Rama’s father suffered his second heart attack in ten years and died. She abandoned the decision to pursue a medical career and continued to work in computer engineering.
It was traumatic because my brother Omar was very young and my other siblings were not much older. After his death, I felt I shouldered a lot of the responsibility of the family, not financially but more emotionally. I was trying to keep things moving along as best as possible.
Perhaps the weight of that responsibility pushed her into the arms of a man who would share and help ease her responsibilities as firstborn. When Rama was twenty-one, she and Emad married, and out of that union came two children, daughter Tala and son Aboudi. She immediately embraced the joys of motherhood, staying home to maintain a physical presence with them, much as her own mother had done. But a few years later, Rama began having heart problems reminiscent of her father’s. She says trying to maintain a presence as wife, mother, sister, and attentive daughter took its toll and almost cost her life.
I was diagnosed with cardiac sarcoidosis and that year was really difficult because my heart was just all over the place. I was in and out of Georgetown University Hospital. In one episode that I had, my defibrillator fired seven times, and I felt almost paralyzed by the electrical current it was pushing. I was taken to the intensive care unit at Fairfax Hospital, and I literally couldn’t speak to anyone for about a day or two because I was just so stunned by what was happening. Then I remember, one of the nurses came in and said, “You have to think what matters most in your life. What’s most important, and let go of everything else.”
The only vision I had in my mind at the time was seeing Tala in our backyard wearing a white graduation dress. I thought, that’s it. That’s the image I had to maintain in my mind, to see her and Aboudi at the age of eighteen. A stillness fell over me and I absolutely believe that those visions and the love in my heart for my children is what settled my actual heart and pulled me through.
She survived that health episode. Within a few years, though, another big shift happened when Rama and her husband accepted that while they both loved their children deeply, the love between them was gone.
By twenty-nine years old I was divorced with two kids. We moved back with my mother, who was now living in Washington, DC. There was pressure to remarry because in our tradition and culture a woman can’t live alone; or at least my mom thought I couldn’t live alone even though we were in the States. The idea was, you can’t stay unmarried for long. The first guy that came along, I remarried even though emotionally, I don’t think I was prepared. It wasn’t like we loved each other. It just became expected.
Expedient yes, forever no. Within a year they divorced.
A single mom for a second time, Rama moved back in with her mom. But now, with her sister and brother graduated from college and the last brother almost finished, her mom followed the call of her old life and friends and returned to her native Syria. Her children and grandchildren were left in the United States to provide support to each other.
Things went fairly smoothly for a while but then tensions began to escalate between Rama and her children’s father. They ended up in court, in a bitter custody battle over Tala and Aboudi. Rama won full custody and her ex-husband moved to Dubai to join his family and pursue a career in real estate investment. By now the children were approaching middle school, and Rama saw that every time his father’s name was mentioned, Aboudi’s eyes would tear up. He loved his dad, and as he neared his teens, Rama knew that despite the anger between the two of them, their son needed his father in these critical years. This was the true test of her unconditional love for her children and her determination to maintain a presence roared.
I thought, How do I make a bad situation for me work well for my kids?
They all moved to Dubai, and she rented an apartment close to their father.
I went from demanding full custody to conceding, “Okay, the kids can stay with you during the week.” This meant the hassle of having to see my ex-husband every morning when I picked them up for school and every afternoon when I brought them back to his apartment. If that was the only way I could have him be involved as a father, I had to do what I thought, as a mom, was best for my kids.
I could so empathize with Rama as she recounted her decision-making process. I too had to make the choice between what felt more comfortable for me and what my heart was telling me my children needed; I too had reached the sobering realization that my life was no longer mine, and my responsibility toward helping my kids build theirs was in my hands, if I could somehow find the heart. Author Roy T. Bennett has said, “You can have everything you want if you can put your heart and soul into everything you do.” Well, Rama definitively did that, despite the discomfort or compromises it caused.
Whatever job I took in Dubai, I always had to put this disclaimer forward: I’m a single mom, which means I have to sometimes leave work early. I need flexibility. I want to be there for their soccer games and whenever as needed. That was always a compromise with work whether it was pay, long-term commitments, taking on jobs that required more travel. I was getting a lot of other offers that I would decline despite much higher pay and a much higher position, but they would have required more travel or longer hours. Not being present for my kids was non-negotiable.
Socially, while she found that being a divorcee carried somewhat of a stigma in Dubai, it ironically became her ex-husband who was the most helpful in getting her beyond the isolation and into a true support network in her new country.
When I got settled he introduced me to a few of his friends whose wives I became very close with, and they became my support, my rock. One of them was an educational psychologist whose kids and mine were the same age, and we did a lot of things together. She’s a very strong and opinionated woman who’s always there for me. She connected me to a few other women in a similar situation, who were either married or divorced like me and who really became my network. I remember one instance when my disease recurred in Dubai and I had to have surgery. I texted one of my girlfriends, and for the next two weeks there were these five women who were taking turns sleeping over and doing whatever the kids or I needed. They truly were my rock and, in the words of the metaphor, my pride.
Rama stayed in Dubai throughout Tala and Aboudi’s high school years. When it came time for college, both were accepted into US universities and Rama followed them back to the States.
The day I dropped Tala off at college, she slipped a letter in my purse that I found later. It read, “I know it’s been difficult for you as a single mom. I know that it’s been difficult for me, a child of a divorced couple, but I also am so grateful for having you as a mom because of what you’ve done. How you’ve managed to do adventurous things, but always be there for us. Even though it was really difficult to deal with certain families, the cultures, you still managed to pull through. You’ve always modeled what it was like to be a working mom, and I’m really happy to have seen you do this. I know that it wasn’t easy. I love you.”
Now, almost a decade later, Rama works remotely as a principal with a tech venture capital firm in Dubai as well as with a nonprofit organization that helps young adults connect with economic growth opportunities outside their conflict-torn countries. Being in the States also helps her stay close to her children, both of whom are thriving.
While feeling fortunate and content with where her life has taken her, like most immigrants she still yearns for her birthplace. But at this moment in its turbulent present, she knows returning to
her native Syria is an impossible dream. As she prays for peace so that her children will one day know Syria too, her heart remains full with the knowledge that she has kept its rich culture alive for them. And she knows in her heart that she was only able to accomplish this through maintaining physical presence and presence of a forgiving heart they needed from her to grow into strong and productive citizens of the world.
LESSON FROM A LIONESS: Love your children more than your pride.
Divorce can bring out the worst in parents. After years of battling inside the home, divorce brings animosities into public spaces where each side is trying to emerge the winner. When we determine the true winners must be our children, handling the process with civility becomes easier. Rama and her ex-husband were able to put the needs of their children front and center in their lives, and the kids emerged whole. No matter what we are dealing with, we have to prioritize the emotional well-being of our kids. When the welfare of our children becomes the guidepost for our lives, making choices about what we say, what we do, how we do it, and when we do it becomes easier. That means it’s important to do regular self-checks to make sure that your actions are pointing you toward the goal that you truly want to reach. And that goal should be emotionally secure and content children. So no matter the circumstance, if you feel stuck, ask yourself, What is my endgame here? The answer will most likely be about enhancing your child’s welfare, and that reminder will set you back on track.
The Power of Presence Page 6