Chewymom

Tonight I stayed up way past my bedtime, finishing the novel The Secret Life of Bees. I finally got my face washed, threw on my pj’s, stretched out in bed…and drifted off to sleep? Ummm, no. I started blogging. In my head. Does anybody else do this? No longer do I lie down and have normal thoughts go through my head, like what I need to do tomorrow, and how cute DD3 is becoming. No, I think in blog. I told this to my DH and he said, “You should jot down notes to yourself.” No. “How about keeping a tape recorder in there and record your thoughts?,” he helpfully offered. No again. I write, word for word, in my head. I’d be writing for 30 minutes. And I doubt he wants to hear me drone on and on into a little tape recorder for great lengths of time. No, the only solution is to get up and write, lest I forget any clever wording I have thought of.

So tonight, I was thinking about how I’ve written a few blogs pertaining to Walmart and my constant state of annoyance with that store. And how I’ve written many blogs about Gary Ezzo, and my similarly constant state of annoyance with him. And I was remembering back many years ago, when GFI, Gary’s for-profit “ministry” was actually making a profit. And he had lots of employees, one of whom was Frank York. And it was Frank’s job to keep an eye on the internet and inform Gary of any negative publicity.

Now, what if somebody at Walmart was doing that, even now? Like, what if Gary was the CEO of Walmart, and he gave someone the job of monitoring the internet for negative publicity? I know, it would actually take an entire army of internet-surfers, but still, let’s imagine. And let’s just pretend that my itty-bitty blog (whose site-meter is about to lag seriously behind that of my DH, by the way) was important and profound enough to be noticed. Well, I was thinking this might be a good thing, because then Gary would know that someone out there wants Stonyfield yogurt and bay leaves to be carried on their shelves. And he’d now that they are completely out of both soap and hot water at our Walmart. And they could fix both problems and have at least one potentially happy customer!

But then the dream/vision/boring blog came to a screeching halt. Wait. This is Gary we’re talking about. Darn it. That means I would be villianized and spoken of as evil for wanting organic yogurt to begin with. Think of all the Yoplait workers going out of business because of me. And how incredibly spoiled my children will become because they have been eating organic yogurt. And besides, if you give those employees the choice of having warm water and soap, soon they’ll be demanding pay raises and better treatment for women. And we can’t have that now, can we? Only weak-willed, ungodly employers give in to the tantrums of their employees. No, in fact, if they ask for soap, and warm water, let’s just take away their toilet paper, too. That’ll teach them to be demanding little employees.

So nevermind. I think I’ll take the evil Walmart just the way it is. And I’ll send Gary back to his garage to fill his dwindling GKGW orders. And now that I’ve finished that off, along with a slice of veggie pizza, I’ll once again attempt to sleep. Preferably without the running blog-commentary.

Okay, I’m not trying to pick on anyone at Intellectuelle, or even on anyone who happens to disagree with me. But Bonnie has made me actually think now. My line of thinking probably isn’t going the direction she would prefer….But here goes.

Bonnie says, “Why inundate impressionable minds with darkly suggestive imagery, or participate in an activity that could lead to spiritual confusion down the road? Why risk taking advantage of innocence?” My first reaction was to almost laugh out loud. I pray that I don’t sound mean-spirited here–that’s not my intention. And that I wasn’t laughing in a mean way. But I thought back to how I used to anticipate Halloween each year. It was SO MUCH FUN! There was the thinking through and planning what to be for Halloween. Then finally the day came when we could dress up! And we’d meet up with friends, even when I was very young and going around with my dad, and walk through the neighborhood. There was the thrill of getting the “good” kinds of candy. The “oh darns” when we were handed a box of raisins. The apple-bobbing pool that was there, every single year at the house around the block. The haunted house set up in the Walton’s shed out back. The yummy-ness of eating lots and lots of candy–of having the rules about not eating candy thrown out for a few hours. The thrill of staying up past our normal bedtime! All wonderful, fond memories!

My impressionable mind was never filled with dark, suggestive imagery. Only the Ouiji board I got for my birthday one year, and the This Present Darkness book by Frank Peretti did that, many years after my first trick-or-treating experience. Peretti definitely had me spiritually…well, maybe not confused, but definitely paranoid. I saw demons in every corner for months! And I grew more curious about “dark” things.

And then there’s Bonnie’s line about risking taking advantage of our children’s innocence. And that’s when my thoughts immediately went to GFI. We used that “children’s innocence” phrase to justify so many things. And it all boiled down to one thing–spiritual snobbery. Well, ok, more than one thing. It was also presumptuous–assuming that God couldn’t or wouldn’t protect our children, so we should take matters into our own hands. We barely let our kids mingle with neighborhood kids, and we certainly didn’t ever let them go to someone’s home. And it isn’t that we don’t try to shield them now. But the paranoid edge has been taken off. We have learned to trust our kids, trust our neighbors and friends, and most of all, to trust God. And to discuss everything–yes, even sexual things and dark things–with our kids.

I know of a family who did much to protect their childrens’ innocence as well. Rather than let their kids play with the neighborhood kids, they had lots and lots of their own. (Before you get on my case about being anti-large family, remember that my family is rather…ummm…large-ish!!) On the rare occasion that a neighbor-kid wandered into their yard, they were watched (and listened to) closely. And at the first sign of anything bad, they were banished from the yard. And what kind of reputation do you think this family enjoyed with the neighbors? Do you think others looked on and thought, “What a godly family! So Christ-like! I want what they have!” No, they thought, “Those people are kind of different, keep to themselves, and aren’t very nice to our kids.” And I’m telling you all about that family because it was an “ah-hah!” for me. A “so that’s how we must’ve looked to others” moment.

And I know I’m wandering far, far away from the point of Bonnie’s post. But that whole “innocence” thing just brought me back to a time in my own parenting journey where innocence and protection were of the utmost importance to me. Even more important than…well…trusting God with my children! And that is wrong. Even at Halloween. And I’m not saying Halloween is “right” for every family. Each child has been given his parents by design, and God knows what each child needs. And if parents believe that it is right for them to shield their own child from anything “dark,” so be it. In our own family, we have chosen to open up, loosen up, and stay tight and close with our children through discussion and dialogue and trust. And we are finding that they are no less innocent as a result. But they are becoming thinking Christians, which is our goal. To have children who can think through any life-situation in which they might find themselves, and be able to decide how to act in a Christ-like and God-honoring way.

Now I’m back off to help the little ones (besides my princess) decide exactly what to be for Halloween! And I’m in a hurry because they are supposed to wear their costumes on Friday!

Our pastor preached this past Sunday on encouraging words. He read Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

There was a section of his sermon that was so encouraging and convicting to me. He addressed how we speak to our children when we correct them. Here is what he said:

There are times when our encouraging words are words of warning. There are times when our encouraging words are actually words of admonition–correction. Those words might correct and build someone back towards seeking God. Our danger–my danger–is doing that and forgetting the gospel. One of the ways I do that the worst is in the way I parent my children.

Our words must be purposeful. They must be marked by grace. They must carry the gospel with them.

For years, my dh and I would do the first part, saying, “You’ve got to change!” And then it would be followed with chastisement or grounding or whatever. Even now, our tendency is to leave it there although usually without the chastisement. But still to leave our children under the law and without hope. We tend to try to come up with a fair punishment for their crimes. A price for them to pay for their wrongdoing. I pray that we will begin to leave our children under the hope of the gospel as we walk them through their sin and wrongdoing. To show them that Christ paid the price. That doesn’t mean there never needs to be a consequence for wrongdoing–sometimes that is appropriate and good as a teaching tool. But they need to hear the hope in our voice and the encouragement, even as we address difficult issues in their lives.

CM

P.S. I filed this under “GFI” in my categories….Isn’t this completely opposite of what Gary teaches? Gary has us leave our children under the law, unless of course, you believe that the spanking is what brings hope to the child. Oh, and our pastor and his wife are ex-GFI users, too. They’ll tell you “it worked for our first child who was compliant by nature, but our second is a whole different story!”

This is the funniest darned image on a blog that I’ve seen in a while…especially if you are in the “not so fond of Ezzo” camp. Check it out!

And she also has another blog that tells her Ezzo story

Part 6 in my series on GFI
For parts 1-5, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red Flags with GFI
Disassociating Myself from the Ezzos and GFI

I have tried to write this blog several times, and it keeps getting jumbled up. I think I am going to just make a list and see how that goes:

• DS7 (as an infant) began to sleep in our bed. He had severe reflux which he was aspirating into his lungs. He had almost constant asthma symptoms, and he had frequent pneumonia. His medications made him extremely irritable, and we did NOT discipline him for his temper fits, knowing that he could not control himself. (So much for going into a restaurant and being complemented on my childrens’ behavior!) This was probably the first change we made, and it was huge for us!!
• We moved our children over to the public schools! No longer paranoid about outside influences, we allowed them to make friendship choices and have been thrilled with the result! We have watched them work through some hardships that never would have crossed their paths before. And we have been able to guide them through their choices and decisions, and they have learned to listen to us and consider what we say because they trust us.
• DS13 went through some angst as he began to have the freedom to (and be forced to) make choices and decisions for himself. In 4th grade, he still was finding it too stressful to decide what to wear in the morning and asked me to start picking out his clothes again. (Red flag!!) He has since learned and grown and now has more confidence as a person because he has been given opportunities to make choices.
• DD2 is a COMPETELY different ball of wax. Let me just say, if anyone thinks boys are hard, they’ve never had a girl. She came out of the womb, self-confident, knowing what she wanted, and determined to get it. She was nursed pretty much on cue. I say “pretty much” because scheduling my babies had become second nature to me, and so even though I fed when she cued for food, I did find myself taking a second look at the clock and doing the math in my head to see when she had last eaten. I also would discourage her, as a newborn, from falling asleep at the breast before I thought she had gotten a good meal in. As a toddler, we see a whole lot more humor in her “terrible twos” behavior than we did with our first children. With them, we were almost on the lookout for disobedience so we would have training opportunities. With DD2, we shake our heads about a lot of stuff and know that it is a normal stage of development and she’ll grow out of it.
• Some of you might want to shut your eyes or go past this one. I’m not looking for a debate here. But we do still use spanking as a form of discipline. It has changed though. As I mentioned above, we are no longer looking for disobedience in our children, and it is not our first choice, but when the behavior warrants it (which in our opinion is rare), we will spank.
• God has changed me. I am learning to be a merciful parent and person. It is not a natural thing for me, but as I have learned to show mercy to my children, mercy is becoming more and more of a character quality in my life.
• Our family is more joyful. We enjoy one another as equals. That isn’t to say that DH and I are not the authorities–we are. But when we are just “hanging out” as a family, everyone’s input, chatter, and opinion is equal. There is no fear on our children’s part that they might say or do the wrong thing. And DH and I are less stressed, because we don’t feel the need to constantly be on the lookout for bad behavior, lest our children start down that rocky slope.
• We parent from the standpoint of being sinful ourselves, now. Before, we were very prideful and self-righteous. Not just toward other parents, but also toward our children. We find ourselves doing a whole lot more apologizing to our kids now, and asking their forgiveness, whereas before we spent hours having them apologize and ask forgiveness for things. Hopefully now they are learning to be humble by our example, not by our force. We are very aware of our own shortcomings.

Last, can I end with a question? Or something for people to consider if their desire is to have godly children who love Christ above all else and who love others as themselves (and isn’t that the goal of any Christian parent?). Do you really want your example of a godly family to be a man who has been “disciplined out of” at least 2 churches and still hasn’t repented; a man who can be SO charming in person (believe me, I know–after meeting him in person, my dh and I offered to take him out for dessert just to get to spend more time with him), yet so unkind and mean-spirited to anyone who disagrees with him (please see Ezzo info for numerous examples of this), a man who has no further relationship with his b-i-l, and at least one dd? Isn’t your goal to have a harmonious family? One that loves Christ? Where your love for one another is deep and beautiful and where you love nothing more than to spend time together? Don’t you want to be able to call your children your friends when they are grown? Then why in the world would you let Gary Ezzo be your example, for goodness sake?!?! Find somebody whose family resembles what you want, and immitate them! That’s how Gary got started in the first place. But it fell apart when he pulled out from under the umbrella and authority of Grace Community Church and turned GFI into a money-making, for-profit venture.

Thank you so much for reading all of this. It is my hope and prayer that it is of some use to others. And if encourages one person to look outside of GFI for biblical parenting advice, then it has been worth it to share this long tale of our family’s journey over the last 15 years.

To read the history behind this post, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red Flags with GFI
Disassociating Myself from the Ezzos and GFI

CM

P.S. There are so many people out there who have tirelessly advocated for a “kinder, gentler” parenting method than Ezzo. I know at times you must grow weary. Or think nobody is listening, nobody cares. You argue for months or even years with a person, and they never listen, and they never get it, and you just want to give up. I wanted to mention all of those who had an impact on me. For most of you, I did not listen to you in my “arguing-for-Ezzo” days. But as lights came on in my head and red flags were raised, snippets of conversations or posts came back to mind. I had many “ah-hah!” moments. I want to list many of you here. I know I’ll leave some out, which makes me hesitant to do this. But as many as I can remember, I want to acknowledge so that YOU do not become weary. (Some of you may even be on here twice, if you used a pseudonym on debate forums!)

Steve Rein
Rebecca Prewitt
Lois Honeycutt
Liz
Laurie Moody
Taketime
Robin Metcalf
The Abels
Ann/Amy Maughan
Metachoi
Mumble
Debra Baker
My friend “M”
Frank York

Part 5 of my series on GFI
For parts 1-4 please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red Flags with GFI

I can’t remember what the procedure was for quitting as a Contact Mom. I hate conflict (some of you who knew me on the Ezzo Debate Forum probably don’t believe me, but it’s true), and I really struggled with telling my on-line Ezzo friends. I knew how things went with those as heavily entrenched in GFI as I had become. I would have no further contact with those on-line friends. I dreaded even more the phone call that I suspected would come from Anne Marie. It did come, and I copped out. Rather than telling her all of my concerns, I told her that my family was struggling and I needed to focus my energy on them. It was true; we were struggling. But I never said, “and by the way, I’m highly bothered that your husband won’t take the same action while he works on his OWN family and character.” AM was very kind and encouraged me to just go inactive, which I declined. I had to get all the way out.

I am happy to say that my church at the time (the one with lots of families who had used GFI materials, but who weren’t so “deep” into it) was wonderful. I was not shunned or ignored. I continued to get phone calls from friends who had parenting questions to ask. I still got together with my friends, I still HAD friends, I was able to comfortably worship side by side with those who were still using Ezzo-ish parenting methods, as well as those who took a more “Sears-like” approach.

I kept all of my manuals, all of the Babywise books, and even my contact manual for a long time. I finally, probably 3 years later, got tired of having them on my bedroom bookshelf as a constant reminder. I had not opened them again, and I knew I didn’t want to. I’m big on recycling and donating and all, but I just couldn’t do it. I got a big, black garbage bag and pitched them all inside and walked them out to the garbage can.

Not too long after I quit as a Contact Mom (or maybe it was around the same time) the GFI Forum closed it’s doors. Several other CMs distanced themselves from the Ezzos, and one started a support message board of ladies from the old Forum. It is still a slow-moving, but active forum with a handful of women who are still “gung-ho” about the Ezzos, but mostly women who either became disillusioned or just tired of Ezzo. I pop on there occasionally. Almost all of these women will counsel a new mom NOT to use a schedule. I know there’s also a breastfeeding loop that I believe is managed by another former Contact Mom. She also would no longer be encouraging a schedule for a newborn. Seems many of us former CMs have turned our back on the philosophy we once advocated (or should I say we’ve turned our back on the for-Gary’s-profit business that we once volunteered for!).

I know that GFI materials are still being used, but the passion and zeal seems to have died down. Don’t you think? Or am I just not as aware now that I’m on “the other side?” My family has moved (again…we do that a lot, it seems), and in our new church we know several families who laugh and say, “Oh yes, we used GFI materials for a while!” and go on to tell about how it worked for one child, but not for another. Or how it was a total disaster. Or how it made them horribly prideful. Somehow or another they came to the conclusion that it was a foolish program to follow.

Nobody speaks of their time using the Ezzo’s materials with fondness…”Oh, I remember those precious days of letting my baby CIO!” “Awww, it was so sweet how Johnny would ask for a red cup, and I would make him use a blue one!” I think many of us feel robbed of those warm memories. I can say of my last two (non-Ezzo’d) children, “It was so sweet the way she would snuggle down in my sling…the way I could take her anywhere at any time of day because I could always nurse her discreetly if she fussed.” Or “when he would cry, my dh would get him and put him in our bed where I’d nurse til we both fell asleep. Then I’d wake up with this sweet baby in my arms.” Or even, “When she would throw a two-year-old temper tantrum, I would show compassion over her frustration, and she would calm down and ask me to hold her.” I can’t say that of my first three. It isn’t that I have no fond memories–I do! I just think there were a lot more memories out there to be made, and I chose another path (Ezzo) and passed up some sweet opportunities. But I’ll share more then-and-now comparisons in my next blog…so stay tuned!

To read the history behind this post, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red Flags with GFI

Stay tuned for:
How I parent now

CM

Once again, I’m late on the scene. I discovered this blog tonight: another mom sharing her story of using GFI materials….

Read what SandK’s Mama has to say about Growing Kids Gary’s Way

CM

Part 4 of my series on GFI

For parts 1, 2, & 3, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI

Soon after I became a Contact Mom, we learned that we had to move to another town. That was fine in terms of GFI, because most of my close GFI-friends were (obviously) not in real life, they were online. And since the computer was moving with us, all was good. We settled into a church in our new city which, although not offering any GFI classes, had lots of families who were using the materials. As soon as word got out that a contact mom had joined them, I became quite popular! I also became pregnant with child #4 around this time.

Around this time, also, my dh began to struggle in his faith. He was having a hard time leading us spiritually, and I began to feel a little bit uncomfortable answering questions as a Contact Mom. Most of my time on the GFI Forum, when I wasn’t moderating things, was spent answering questions that went beyond the infant stages. In fact, many of the questions were from moms whose whole family needed help, and here mine was, starting to struggle along. Internally, I was questioning the wisdom of being in a place of “authority,” when personally things weren’t going so well. This was especially true since we were in a new city and a new church. I was torn between wanting so badly to make good friends and be well-respected, and being real and letting people know we were struggling.

Meanwhile, some charges were being made against Gary Ezzo. Now, articles had been coming out for a while, but there was always what seemed to me to be a good response from the GFI camp. I was so puzzled about why so many people seemed to have a vendetta against Gary. I decided (along with many others, I believe) that these people might be raising kids according to the world’s standards, and they didn’t like the light of truth that GFI was shining upon them. And besides, faithfully following the materials (PFP, PFTTY, GKGW) was hard! I mean, if you wanted your kids to be perfect, you had to watch them like a hawk and never put up with wrongdoing. You also had to be very, very careful about who they played with. And that was exhausting! Yes, these must be weak parents who were criticizing the Ezzos.

Still, some of the accusations against Gary were troubling. I began to wonder if he shouldn’t step aside for a while. After all, I was questioning the wisdom of ME being in a position of authority while my family was struggling. Now, Gary’s own church was distancing themselves from him, as were many other people formerly involved with GFI. Clearly Gary was having his own “issues,” and yet he never seemed to question the wisdom of being in a position of leadership.

Another red flag had actually begun to be raised back in our previous town, when instead of being on the inside looking out, I was briefly on the outside looking in. It felt good to be one of the ones who was doing things right and who was looked up to. But when I was on the “outs…” well, that smarted a bit. I started wondering about the exclusivity of GFI. Was this just a characteristic of that one town, or did it permeate the organization? The longer I was involved, the more I began to see that this same pattern repeated many times over. There was a paranoia of having our children exposed to anybody who was slightly different in their parenting philosophies. Churches, playgroups and families were being torn apart. GFI families were becoming only comfortable around one another. Except comfortable is a funny word to use, since for me, I was on pins and needles around “likeminded” families–always wanting my children to behave better than theirs, and feeling terrified that they would say or do something that would give us away as “not quite acceptable.”

Thankfully at our new church, although many families had used GFI materials, this attitude was not prevalent. My theory is that this is because the elders were very wise and never allowed classes to be officially taught. It was a big city, and families were busy. They would listen to the tapes off and on, while driving through traffic, or on a rare quiet evening when soccer games were over and the kids were settled, and they weren’t picking up on the “importance” of complete obedience to the plan.

Although I was seeing these little flags, it never became a flashing neon sign until I tracked down the Abels. They had been such an integral part of the beginning of the Ezzo’s ministry. (Or shall I say business, since by this time it was out from under the umbrella of John McArthur’s church and was now a for-profit company.) I mentioned our friends at the Master’s Seminary in my first post. The wife, “M” was one of the first “real life” contact moms within Grace Church. She had served right alongside Julie Abel. So I really valued the Abel’s opinion–they were friends of friends! I read what they had publically posted, and I emailed them. Eric kindly and graciously responded to my email. I shared that I had growing concerns and asked why they had left. He was not malicious at all; he did not reveal any “sordid details” of their departure. He just reiterated what was said in their public statement and said that especially as their children became older, they were seeing the need to become less controlling.

I was beginning to wonder about the whole control thing myself. My second child, DS13 was starting Kindergarten. He was seriously lacking in self-confidence and the ability to make decisions. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great kid! Respectful of adults, always saying, “yes, ma’am” and “yes, sir,” using the “interrupt rule” (you Ezzo people know what I’m talking about - lol!), NEVER getting a card pulled. But he could not make a decision to save his life. I began reviewing in my mind how we had trained him. Oh yeah…it started to “click” with me. He was doing just what we had trained him to do. Wasn’t that the point of the whole “red cup/blue cup” thing? (Again, Ezzo people…you know this….) We taught him that he was not capable of or allowed to make a decision. We controlled everything, we were the final authority, we made the decisions. And now I was expecting him to pick out his clothes in the morning? To decide what to play at recess? How could he? He had been specifically trained NOT to!

With all of this swirling around in my head, I decided it was time to hang up my Contact Mom hat. I debated just becoming inactive while I sorted things out, but I knew I would still be more associated with GFI than I really wanted to be. I knew I needed to get out.

To read the history behind this post, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI

Stay tuned for:
Disassociating from the Ezzos
How I parent now

CM

Part 3 of my series on GFI
for parts 1 & 2, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI

It must have been 1996. I received my contact mom application and went through it quickly. I was concerned about my pastor’s reference letter because we had recently changed churches, and the pastor did not know me well. I decided, on my own initiative, to ask the area coordinators to also do a pastor’s reference for me. “L” (married to “S”) was a pastor at another church, and I had gotten to know S fairly well through these “the-only-five-women-in-this-city-who-are-serious-about-Ezzo” meetings.

Time went by, and eventually L and S called us and said they needed to talk to us about some things. We invited them over for dinner, and they came. They had a little list–five things they needed to confront us about. Now, I know the verse, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” And I’ll confess right here that I have a VERY hard time seeing those wounds as “faithful” while they’re being administered. But in this situation, I was really struggling to see both the “faithful” and the “friend” part. I definitely felt the wound, though! I can’t remember now what three of the things were, but two of the issues were that my dh and I tended to interrupt (especially each other), and that we had corrected our son (DS14) in public. They had seen this second thing happen once at church during the break between church and Sunday school, when he would not quit eating cookies.

I think the bothersome thing was that first, these things seemed so petty. I mean, if we were really being offensive, we definitely needed to be spoken to. But the whole reason for even telling us these issues was because they were having trouble recommending me as a contact mom. They weren’t sure I met up to the strict standards set by the Ezzos because of these concerns. I promise you that although I can’t remember the other three items, they were similar in nature. And the thing is, if my sins are serious enough to confront me over, then confront me whether or not I’m applying to be a contact mom. But if they are not issues worth addressing from one Christian to another–between faithful friends–then why should the standards to be a contact mom be higher than those to be a godly Christian?

Well, this had all been a huge blow to my ego. I wasn’t perceived as perfect any more. Nonetheless, I received a call from Anne Marie herself a few weeks later. She told me that I had been recommended “with reservations,” but that it shouldn’t be a problem since I wouldn’t be taking the regular phone calls. She was enthusiastic about my help both on the forum and in taking calls from special needs parents.

On-line, I became quite active. I tended to avoid the baby questions and gravitated toward the old kid questions (with all of my expertise) [eyeball roll]. But my absolute favorite thing was helping with forum moderation. I, along with two other ladies, had moderator status, and we could put people on “probation” (I can’t remember the term we used) and even lock them out. We would frequently email and even telephone back and forth between ourselves about posts and people we were keeping an eye on. If a mom came on who was sincerely asking questions and struggling, we and the other contact moms took compassion on her and tried to help her along. But our compassion only went so far, and as soon as it appeared that she was starting to lose her love of the Ezzos, we would really watch her posts. I was also active (still am!) on the Parents Place Ezzo Debate Forum. We would read posts over there and even learn a person’s style, and then we could spot them when they snuck onto the GFI forum. We would lock out anybody who appeared to be a trouble-maker and especially those who were posting under false pretenses (posting fake questions to try to force us to see the folly of Ezzo parenting).

I loved the on-line community. There, my family could appear perfect. In real life, things were still humming along pretty well, but I was beginning to be excluded from my little group of women. There was a homeschool convention in another town, and I discovered that all five of the “serious women” but me were riding together. When I asked to ride with them, I was told that there was no room because the driver, who normally drove a Suburban, would be in her husband’s smaller car in order to save on gas. (And no, gas prices were NOT well over $2 per gallon–this was in 1996 or 1997!) I would have gladly paid for the difference in gas, but apparently my little interrupting faux pas along with my public correction were enough to get me blacklisted from this little group.

I’ll tell you what really was at work here. God was crumbling my world. My fake, phony world where I tried to be perfect and have perfect children. More crumbling was to follow, but I had no idea what God had in store for me.

For parts 1 and 2 of this blog, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI

Stay tuned for:
Red flags
Disassociating from the Ezzos
How I parent now

Part 2 of my series on GFI

So, I left off with things running smoothly. Two ds’s successfully breastfed for as long as I wanted to nurse, and I was just getting going with the toddler years. I had gotten my hands on a copy of what I believe was the first Toddler series. It wasn’t actually done by the Ezzos, but by a group of parents led by Dirk and Cheryl Williams.

I discovered pretty quickly into DS14’s toddler-hood that he learned differently than many toddlers. He was my first child, and I plugged away, determined to treat him just like any other child, and not having any older child of my own to compare him to. I’m thankful for that. I think being treated like everyone else has been good for him. I cannot tell you how many therapists through the years have told horror stories of the “handicapped brats” (their words) they had to work with–developmentally delayed children whose parents completely coddled them and expected nothing. Nonetheless, we could have been a bit more merciful with DS14, I’m sure.

One thing I noticed with DS14 was that he did not transfer information from one thing to another. My best example is that although he might learn that he was not allowed to touch one bookshelf, that did not mean he couldn’t touch another bookshelf. That meant a whole lot of training on our part, to be sure! But we worked hard, and DS14 was able to learn all about what not to touch and all.

We were careful to use the playpen faithfully, which was really handy when DS14’s therapist would come and I could just plop DS13 in there and have him play happily. We did most of the things recommended in the Toddler Series with gusto. And DS13, compliant toddler that he was, did great! I looked for opportunities to teach them to obey. I taught them to come up to the kitchen but stop short of coming in. They had good high chair manners, although I did not begin that at quite the early age suggested in PFP. As soon as the boys could talk, they learned to say, “yes, ma’am” (or something like that, in toddler-speak) when given an instruction.

After a few years, along came DS10. He was born, and during the first 6 weeks of his life, we sold a house and moved to another state where we stayed with my grandmother-in-law (is that what you call it??) for a few weeks while we looked for a house to rent. During that time, DS10 went from sleeping through the night (the old 8 hours by 6 weeks thing) to waking in the night. Out of respect for MawMaw, I went ahead and fed him. But boot camp started once we were in our own place again. So around 10 weeks, I began giving DS10 a paci at 4:00am when he would wake up (his last feeding had been at 10pm). This worked well, until we got sick of popping the paci back into his mouth. But thankfully around the time we went cold-turkey with the paci, he found his thumb. So all was good.

Around the time DS10 found his thumb (he was 4 months) I was surprised to discover that my milk supply had just dried up! Imagine that! I had successfully nursed two babies and even had an abundant supply! And now, no milk! I switched to bottles, and never gave it another thought, other than to make a note to myself never to move again with a newborn. Truly, that was stressful, and I am certain I wasn’t drinking enough water and all. Of course in hindsight (and by hindsight, I mean “way-post-Ezzo-hindsight” not “a-few-weeks-later-hindsight”) I question the wisdom of making a 10 week old baby go for 8 hours between feedings, especially when he’s waking up wanting to eat, and I question what that might signal to a woman’s body. (Maybe, “Baby doesn’t need food, so let’s dry up that milk, ok?”)

In spite of switching to a bottle, things were running along very smoothly. I had two well-behaved toddlers, a growing, happy baby, and life was good. I was frequently complented by therapists, my kids were cute, and I knew I was a pretty darned-good parent! I was one of those moms Gary talks about who could go into a restaurant for a meal and have people stop and complement me on my well-behaved children!

Along came the GFI area coordinators, whom my dh and a sister-in-law had known in the past. The wife, “S” apparently noticed my excellent parenting skills [cough] and asked me to meet with her and four other moms who were “serious about Ezzo.” This is as opposed to all the other riffraff out there who either didn’t know about Ezzo or were doing it half-heartedly (or worse–unsuccessfully!). I was feeling pretty good! These other people were all class coordinators. I knew we weren’t ready for that, but already I had shown myself to be useful on the OLD GFI compuserve forum and on the “newer” GFI forum. I was very confident in my parenting skills. I had two well-behaved pre-schoolers, and a baby who was thriving (bottle-fed) on a schedule. I doled out all kinds of parenting advice to my sisters-in-law, some of which actually was helpful! I had even emailed with Anne Marie.

GFI’s materials had given me the ability to be excellent at something, and I enjoyed the accolades I received as a parent. I loved GFI, and I decided the time was right to apply to become a contact mom. I was not confident with taking phone calls (I’m a natural blogger–gotta be able to edit!!) I decided that my niche could be taking calls from families with a child with special needs, and participating on-line. So I made that call and requested a contact mom application!

I’ll leave off here for now, but I hope you are seeing the amazing pride that was creeping in. Ok, it didn’t creep, it slammed me! Romans 12:3 was far, far from my mind: I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement…. Christ was far from my mind, too, for that matter, even though I thought that everything I was doing was because of my Christianity. But as Philippians 2:5ff says: Have this mind among yourserlves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant…. And the unity Christ desires for His bride, the body? Seriously lacking. Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and humble mind. 1Peter 3:8. Come to think of it, not one of those attributes was true of me. But I was feeling very, very godly.

For part one of this series of blogs, please check here:
How I Got Involved with GFI

Stay tuned for:
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red flags
Disassociating from the Ezzos
How I parent now

Thanks for reading,

CM (that’s CHEWYMOM, not CONTACTMOM - lol!)