THE HONEYCAKES DIARIES (an Ellen Baker Blog)

Archives:  April 2005

April 23, 2005

A Family Story So Weird I Couldn't Have Made It Up

So . . . My last entry was so popular that I thought I would do something even MORE personal this time.  Someone wrote to me after my last entry asking me to write about my job as a psychiatric hospital administrator.  I thought it might be good to start a little further back in time. . .

I decided I will tell you about my grandparents.  My mother gave her permission for me to do this, provided I don't reveal names or identifying information.  You will understand why when you read when what I am about to write.  Honestly, I'm not sure that anyone who wouldn't want this story shared is still alive, but you never know.  It is definitely an interesting story and one that deserves to be told.  I think my grandmother especially would be glad that I am telling it.  I don't mind if some of you try to track my grandfather down on the internet--if you are curious, you can probably figure out who he was.  But I promised my mom I wouldn't make it easy.

So here's a short version of the story:

My grandfather was a prominent psychiatrist beginning in the 1930's.  He moved up in the state hospital system, eventually becoming the director of the largest state mental hospital in the country.

My grandmother was also a psychiatrist.  She gave birth to my mom, her only child, in 1939.  Immediately after giving birth, she developed what is known as a post-partum psychosis.  Basically this is a type of mental illness that strikes women who have just given birth.   It usually comes on very suddenly and is very disabling.  She started having hallucinations while she was still on the maternity ward.  She was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In the 1940's there was very little treatment available for mental illness, despite the efforts of people like my grandfather. She was sent to the best doctors and hospitalized several times.  She was also, I found out recently, given Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), which we actually administer at my current place of employment.

Nothing helped her.   When my mother was about 5, my grandmother was sent to a state hospital permanently.  That was the way it worked in the 1940's.  Obviously, my grandfather arranged for her to go to a different hospital than where he was working at the time.

In those days it was possible to get a divorce from someone like my grandmother without their permission or knowledge.  My grandfather did so and remarried.  I don't think my grandmother ever knew that she was divorced.  At that point, decision making power over my grandmother's healthcare reverted to my great-grandmother.

Now, my grandmother had the bad luck to get sick during the only decade that psychosurgery was being practiced.  Psychosurgery and ECT were some of the first attempts by psychiatrists to actually treat mental illness.  Prior to the 1930's, there was pretty much NO real treatment for serious mental illness.  Patients were managed by being confined or restrained.  

When I say psychosurgery, I am working up to the point where I tell you that my grandmother had a lobotomy sometime in the 1940's.  If you are not familiar with it, a lobotomy is brain surgery which involves basically disconnecting the frontal lobes of the brain from the rest of the brain.  It was arranged by my great-grandmother without consulting my grandfather.  He was apparently furious when he found out.   My grandmother had terribly frightening hallucinations and the lobotomy was an attempt to ease her suffering.   I do believe that the doctors who did it were not mad scientists experimenting on her--I think they truly were trying to treat these illnesses the best they could.   My grandmother was calmer after the surgery, but she also experienced its many disabling effects.  If you want to read more about the history of lobotomies, here's a good link:  PBS Lobotomy Article.

But meanwhile, my grandfather had found a better way.  The first anti-psychotic drug, Thorazine, was having good results in France.  My grandfather was able to use his influence to get the Food and Drug Administration to agree to a large controlled trial at his hospital in the early 1950's.  The results were astounding:  for the first time, many patients improved.  An article about my grandfather quotes him as saying, "When we saw the patients respond, we realized that we were truly dealing with a treatable condition."   Restraint of patients decreased, as did the number of patients who required hospital care. 

The drugs weren't perfect (they still aren't).  They had horrendous side effects.  They led to a trend towards discharging patients prematurely (which also still happens).  But they were the beginning of real treatment for mental illness, and have paved the way for many, many drugs which have since changed the lives of millions of people.  Here's a good link about the history of Thorazine from the same PBS site as above:  PBS Thorazine Article.

Unfortunately, it was too late for my grandmother.  The drugs don't work too well if you've had a lobotomy.  She was never able to leave the hospital.

Now here's the hard part to write:  My grandfather didn't handle this situation very well at home.  My mother was forbidden to speak of her mother, or to try to visit her.  She knew that her mother was in a state hospital, and because my mother lived with my grandfather in a special house on the grounds of a similar state hospital, she knew what her mother's life must have been like.  In fact, hospital patients were often sent into my grandfather's house to do housework, so my mother saw mentally ill women all the time, talking to their voices while they did the dishes.  And she knew that her mother was someone like these women, but she wasn't allowed to talk about it.

It's kind of amazing that my mother grew up into a pretty together adult, all things considered.   When she met my dad, he encouraged her to track down and visit her mother, which she did at age 25 for the first time in 20 years.  This made my grandfather very angry, and he wrote my mother out of his will over it, although he continued to have contact with her.

The first time my mother saw her mother as an adult, she was pregnant with me.  This was in 1965.   They did continue to have regular visits, although it wasn't always easy to communicate.  My grandmother did understand who my mother was, and was able to see me and my sister a couple of times before she died in 1972.  I do remember visiting her as a small child.  The state hospital was a scary place--I have a clear memory of burning my hand on the radiator in the dayroom.  And I have suffered through many, many lobotomy jokes in my life, occasionally bursting out with, "You're talking about my family and it's not funny!" when I didn't think I could tolerate another one. 

I only saw my grandfather a few times in my life.  He just couldn't seem to handle too much contact with my mother or her children.  My mother says he really wasn't close to her half-brother and sister (the children of his second wife) either--he dealt with tragedy by becoming a workaholic.  One of the things I was aware of from a very early age was the incredible irony of his personal and professional life (I'm sure he found them impossible to distinguish most of the time).  He died in 1990, and I didn't go to his funeral.   I kind of wish I had--my mother said it was really interesting.  But at the time I was too angry with him for keeping me away all those years to go to his funeral and pretend to everybody that we had had a relationship. 

So isn't it funny that now I have followed in his footsteps and work in psychiatric hospital administration?  I am the only one of his descendents who does.  I didn't plan on it--I originally wanted to be a psychotherapist, but I did an internship at a hospital in 1991 when I was in graduate school and never wanted to do anything else after that.  I sometimes wonder if there is some psychological reason I have been drawn to his work (although obviously on a much smaller scale!).  Is it my way of connecting with him?  Was he more of an influence on me than I thought?  Is there more of him in me than I imagined? 

All I know is that it would be a shame if this story was never told--it's far too interesting.   And it occurred to me that now that I have an audience for my blog, I can get the story more out in the open where it deserves to be.

I think my grandmother would have appreciated that.

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April 3, 2005

Why Keith and I Don't Have Children

Let's face it, you're probably curious about this one.

The other day I was having a pedicure and the nail tech was chatting away about her kids.  She then looked up and me and said brightly,

"Are you a Mom?"

When I answered that I wasn't, she gave me a look of such sadness and pity that it dawned on me: "Oh, God, she thinks I have fertility problems!"  I was quick to assure her that the childlessness was a choice.  But it did sink in at this point that I have become somewhat of an oddity:  The 38 year old married woman with no kids.  By choice.  And it was clear from the pleasant but puzzled look on the nail tech's face that she was having difficulty with the concept of a woman who didn't WANT to be a Mom.

So here's the scoop:  I HAVE NEVER LIKED CHILDREN.   I admit it.  And I make no excuses for it--it's just how I am.  Some of my therapists have attempted to "help me work on it" over the years (all of them eventually admitted to me how much they love their own kids, and how it made them sad to think I would never get to experience this).  But I've been pretty clear with them that I really didn't see this as a "problem" to be "solved." 

I've known I didn't want kids since well before I met Keith.  My biggest fear was that I would fall madly in love with someone who was DESPERATE to have kids, thus causing a great dilemma (this actually happened to one my favorite roommates--we haven't talked in a few years, so I don't know if she ended up having kids or not, but it certainly came close to breaking up her relationship with her future husband). 

How can I explain this feeling? It is deep and gut-level, and obviously goes against all my programming as a human being.  It probably existed on some level my whole life, although I didn't start saying it out loud to people until sometime after I finished college.  I had some boyfriends over the years who shared my feelings, and some who did not.  And one who (HORRORS!) already had a 6 year old daughter.  That's one interesting thing about love and passion: they will lead you to do things you didn't think you were capable of, and force you to re-evaluate what you said you would never do.  This relationship did not last long for a number of reasons, the kid issue probably playing a role--although the central issue being that my boyfriend wasn't divorced from his daughter's mother.  This did lead to the question of what was best for the little girl, as opposed to best for my boyfriend, or me.  My boyfriend eventually reconciled with his wife, which seemed certainly better for his daughter, and probably better for him.  I do think it's better for children to be raised by both parents together, although that it not necessarily the norm these days. 

Why this rambling story from my past?  Because it made me really think about what I was willing to give up in order to have kids. You really do have to put the welfare of the child above your own, for a period of many years.  And I realized I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT.  

I like my life the way it is.  I have job that is challenging, a great marriage, friends, family, and leisure pursuits.  I love that after a hard day of work, I can collapse next to Keith on the sofa, put on jammies, order pizza, and RELAX.   I love staying up till 3:00 a.m. on a weekend, then sleeping till noon.   I'm glad I have the flexibility to be able to stay at work late at the hospital if there's a crisis without worrying about day care and school activities--let alone the emotional impact on the kid of having a workaholic mom.

So I've decided to skip the part of life that most people consider to be the most important.  And I'm thankful that I found someone to marry who feels the way that I do.  Keith and I squared this one away very early (on the 3rd date?) and we have really never wavered.  I didn't twist his arm at all--he really felt the same way I did.  I still remember how relieved we both felt that night.

OK--I hear the masses out there screaming: "BUT YOU'D MAKE SUCH A GOOD MOTHER!!"   Don't think I haven't heard this one a lot, and it may or may not be true.  But it doesn't change my feelings.  (I also get: "IT'S THE BEST THING YOU WILL EVER DO" and "YOU SHOULDN'T MISS OUT ON THIS EXPERIENCE" --I'm sure even now some of you are warming up your computers in order to email me your thoughts on this.  Feel free--I promise I won't respond with hostility.  But my mind's made up). 

Sure--I worry about dying alone (or Keith dying alone).  The thing is, it really seems like a rotten and selfish thing to have kids just so they can take care of you when you are old.  And anyway, there's no guarantee that the kids would be willing (or able) to do this.  People don't always do what you expect them to do.  And life doesn't always work out the way you think it will--so maybe our deaths will be different than I fear.

So, beyond my gut feeling, if you want actual REASONS that I don't want to have kids, here's a summary (some of these topics I have covered above, some I haven't):

• I have a terrible history of Mental Illness in my family.  Keith has a history of Alcoholism in his.  Both of these diseases are genetic.
• I spend a lot of time taking care of people at work.  A lot of my maternal instincts already find a voice in the work that I do.
• I have no patience with kids. I babysat as teenager, because that's what my peer group did, but I HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.  After a while I wised up and just stopped taking babysitting jobs.
• I don't want to give up my current life.
• Keith and I very happy living together, just the two of us.  Our relationship continues to be very romantic and passionate, even though we have been together for 13 years.  I don't want to disrupt this. 

However, if I REALLY, in my gut, wanted kids, none of the above would matter.   I would have them anyway.

One interesting thing I can say is:  my 39th birthday is very close (April 19, just 2 weeks away), and MY BIOLOGICAL CLOCK STILL HAS YET TO GO OFF.   I didn't start yearning for a baby as time marched on and I hit my late thirties.   My feelings haven't budged one bit, even as I hit the age when many childless women are panicking. 

Maybe I was born without a biological clock.  That would make sense.  But I'm comfortable with who I am and I don't see my decision as a symptom of some sort of pathology.

There used to be a great web site devoted to this topic called "childfree."  There is no USA site anymore, but the Australian site still exists: http://www.childfree.com.au/    It's nice to know there are like-minded folk out there.

And don't think I hate parents!  I don't!  Don't be afraid to write to me about your lives as parents, or bring your kids to our home!  Really!  I understand that children are a big part of our population--I'm not wishing I lived in some kind of weird child-free universe (like to the magical kingdom in the movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"--anyone remember that one, where all the children were put in jail? oooh, how creepy!).  I even spend a fair amount of time working with teenagers at my job.  But ultimately, that's enough for me.

I hope I haven't scandalized all of you too much.  It's somewhat of a risk to write something like this--but hey, it's fun to write from your gut.  Feel free to debate me--I'm expecting some interesting feedback to this entry, and I'm ready to dialogue!

Oh!  Thanks to everyone who wrote to me following my shameless plea for email: Carl, Peter, Bruce, Walt, Audrey, Sean, Matthew, John H, John B, Will, and Matt S.  Some of you I know, some I don't.   Thank you ALL.  It's great to get mail and to get to know you.

Enjoy the above entry and feel free to be scandalized!

April 10:  ADDENDUM!  Thanks to Ginohn, who sent me the correct address of the USA Childfree Site: www.childfree.net.  It's got some great stuff.  Check it out!

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