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1 day ago
Want to share Thanksgiving plans?
I’ll start.
Last year’s Thanksgiving was NOT a good one for me. Looking back, that was inevitable. My mother had died less than three weeks before, my father six months before that, and Thanksgiving was always their holiday. Although I’d done most of the cooking for the last few years, the menu was all theirs. Mom had evolved her recipes for dressing with homemade bread, gravy, pies, sweet potatoes with marshmallows…all annotated with changes made over the last thirty years or so. Mom and Dad couldn’t imagine Thanksgiving without a formal sit-down meal in the underused great room, with silver and napkins, and a long pastoral prayer to start out, and all of the kids wearing nice sweaters and shoes (that was always a tough one).
After Mom died, I fixed the same meal for all my people. We sat down and ate it. It took fifteen minutes and then everyone was done (after three full days of cooking). I retreated to the sofa and wept. It all felt false and awful and I couldn’t even say why.
So here’s what we’re doing this year.
I polled the family to find out what the meal essentials were (dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes). I’m making those dishes, because I like cooking. I’m roasting chicken and smoking chicken legs, because nobody here actually LIKES turkey. (We just always ate it.) The kids are bringing food that they want to add to the mix—pies and rolls and baked apples. I’m setting everything out, along with breakfast cinnamon rolls, at 11 AM. And then we’re going to spend the day in our downstairs great room with a fire, movies, and family games. Everyone can help themselves to whatever they want to eat whenever they want to eat it, and they’re all big enough to figure out how to warm it up if it’s gotten cold. They can join in games and movies as they choose. They don’t have to sit around a table. They don’t have to wear shoes.
And then on Friday and Saturday, we’ll put up the Christmas tree and make Christmas cookies.
I think this will work. It sounds much more like *us*.
5 days ago
Just my wife and I with three cats. Turkey burgers, sweet potato fries and pie. If I had a Time Machine first stop would be grandmas house to taste her cornbread again.
We live in Japan so we had a Friendsgiving on Monday, which is the Japanese national holiday Thanksgiving for Labor Day. I can get an imported frozen turkey at Costco but the cost is crazy and it won't fit in our fridge or freezer anyway, and possibly not in our oven. I made a roasted chicken breast for each person smothered in herbs and imported American bacon (Japanese bacon contains casein, which I'm allergic to). I made some sides and a kabocha pie, and friends brought salad, mashed taters, and more dessert. You should've seen our tiny fridge packed to the gills leading up to that day. It was comedic and frustrating and I felt grateful for all that feasting too.
Great plan Susan! Happy Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for all I have learnt through your books.
When we lived on the Georgia coast, we started having a low country boil for Thanksgiving as my people don't like Thanksgiving food. It's easier to cook and clean up plus everyone loves it. It's also birthday weekend for my boys so that takes precedence in our family.
Beautiful! I can’t write more or I’ll cry. Just beautiful.
We quite enjoy turkey, but it’s just three of us this year, so it’s a ham in the crock pot and Yorkshire puds done popover style (with other favourites). We’ve already been putting up Christmas goodies and telling people how we appreciate and love them. May your memories be a blessing to you.
Military decision means our family is pivoting. Two of my sons weren’t coming because of work so we were going to be elegant with our small gathering. Instead, we will be packing up the Feast and driving 4 hours to one son’s small apartment because his younger brother got permission to leave base. It’s going to be paper plates and cans of soda and too few chairs and lots of laughter—joy in the chaos of family.
Sounds wonderful:)
I also had the "spent 15 hours preparing the meal that they ate in 15 minutes and left" year a few years back. Last week I asked each person what their favorite dish is, and that's all I'm making this year, plus the turkey. Luckily for me, they all choose things very simple to prepare, so I won't have to knock myself out. I'll still use the china and have a formal meal. Two years ago I had a Thanksgiving breakfast primarily so I could jump on the "stuffles" trend (stuffing cooked in a waffle iron), and we ate in front of the TV watching the parade, and that was a nice change of pace, plus every time an elder started an annoying topic I could quickly change it by exclaiming about the next float or matching band or whatever.
I grew up the only child of a single mother, so - if we weren't invited to share in someone else's Thanksgiving - we usually had individual game hens with a kind of rich, Worcestershire-based sauce spooned over. I always thought those were fun and novel - but I always longed for the big family dinner. Now that I have my own family (husband and 6 kids - though 2 are adults who live out of state), I do the big turkey dinner at the big table. It's the same table we always use, however, and it's an open floor plan, so it doesn't feel overly formal. I do dress the table nicely though, with beautiful flatware bought from Amazon, and a set of vintage dishes I bought at a thrift store years ago. My sister-in-law's family and my mom usually join us (17 total people last year!), but this year they have some life things going on, so it will just be my mom. That will be 7 of us. This year we will all fit around the one table, and I will stress a bit less about the details. My mom will do the most complicated dish, which is the stuffing, though she's never made it before. That's my brother-in-law's creative specialty. I fully expect things will change in future years, and I'm fine with that. For now, I'm enjoying my family around for a more traditional Thanksgiving, which I always wanted, but didn't grow up with. There are always game hens! I'd better get that sauce recipe though, while my mom is still with us.
I like to cook. My kids love cooking day. The smells, taste testing, helping out. We will have a turkey basted with butter and sage, homemade cranberry sauce, our favorite mashed potatoes (leave on the skin, tons of sour cream and salt and pepper and garlic), brown gravy, and green casserole with fennel and mushrooms. No one likes pumpkin pie. Or apple pie. We'll make apple butter cookie bars , pumpkin coffee cake, cranberry oatmeal cookies, and my new thing to try this year is a cranberry tart. I might also try to do a pumpkin roll. We'll eat sometime and graze and have board games out and music on. Friday and Saturday is Christmas tree, porch lights, and house decoration time. I've tried the music and cocoa thing but it's a disaster with 7 kids. It's always a balance of not having chaos and disaster but also trying to not be high pressure and have a good time.
Thank you for sharing. The holidays can be hard to figure out when vital, important people are no longer with you. Thanksgiving hasn't been the same since my dad passed away. It changed when my daughter died as well.
Sounds wonderful 
As an Aussie, we don’t have Thanksgiving, but we’ve had similar reassessments about Christmas. We had a surprise “just us” Christmas a couple of years ago when my son caught a cold and we couldn’t join the big family bash. At short notice, we discussed what we would most like for Christmas dinner, and garlic prawns it was! Since my mum is pescatarian, that has since become a family standard Christmas dish for that side of the family. 😊 I do personally love the whole roast meat & vegies, pudding etc for Christmas, but since my dad died, I’m the only one who does, and it’s a lot more work than garlic prawns & salad!
I love the way your thanksgiving sounds, and Iove the sharing of your heart in this post, especially as you forge new paths forward after great loss. It is not an easy thing, but may finding joy in the holidays become easier with each year
Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday, and we cooked & hosted it for 30 years running. Loved it! 7 years ago, Thanksgiving was the final holiday we celebrated with our son before he died from cancer. Since then, we haven’t been able to handle Thanksgiving. This year, we are farm-sitting for friends, so we will enjoy cold walks & time with the animals. And we will order pizza, if they are open. Maybe next year.
The red stove is a keeper! It's just the three of us; our son is home from Clemson for the rest of the week. We are having collards, squash casserole, rice casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, and a turkey breast. I have a second turkey breast I will cook in a couple of days and we'll use most of that to make a pot pie. I will probably have the parade on; and we will probably watch a movie.
I will be dog sitting while the rest of the family takes a day trip to an outdoor event. (My work schedule is not travel friendly.) For many years, I set an elaborate table for my immediate family (if we didn't travel.) But, that was before chemo. We live far away from any extended family so the typical potluck style feasts have not been an easy option over the past 38 years. Once, we tried to start our own community sourced potluck. It wasn't sustainable for various reasons beyond my control. So, it is what it is. Yesterday, I met a 72 year old woman who will be WORKING on Thanksgiving Day. Her joy initiated a small tear into the cloak of sadness weighing me down since hearing others sharing their cooking and feasting plans.
I love this idea. We lost my Grandma just before Christmas almost ten years ago and tried to make it normal. Cried through most of the day. She was the one who always made holidays special. It hasn’t been the same since. But new traditions. Happy Thanksgiving.
Perfect!
This sounds amazing!!
I think this sounds lovely and relaxing! I’m very thankful that I have amazing in-laws, and I’ve spent every Thanksgiving with them for almost 20 years since my own parents disowned me. I lost one family but gained another, and they’re incredible grandparents now!
My mom died thirty years ago, on the Monday of Thanksgiving week. My son turned four that year — on Thanksgiving Day (which was sandwiched between a Wednesday wake and a Friday funeral). Every single Thanksgiving since then has been a weird attempt (sometimes successful) to avoid the complex cacophony of emotions I experienced that week in 1995.
Sounds relaxing.
You have to make the family traditions work for the family you currently have. Your plan sounds delightful! We lost my FIL & BIL earlier this year. For about the past 10 years, I’ve been cooking everything, mostly by myself, from scratch for days. Sometimes similar experiences to yours. This year, I’m using boxed stuffing & store-bought pie crust. Lots of shortcuts!
This is a hard piece to read.
But I think it's important. I write about skepticism of expertise in my upcoming book THE GREAT SHADOW. The arrogance of doctors who refused to pay attention to women dying in childbirth: that was a huge smear on the medical profession, and although childbed fever is a thing of the past (at least in the industrialized West), physicians still pay far too little attention to the experiences of expectant and laboring mothers.
The extension of healthy skepticism over medical overreach to ANY expertise, though? That reaches cult-like proportions, as this article makes VERY clear. The rejection of midwifery is not only anti-expertise, but anti-tradition, anti-woman, anti-experience, anti-reality.
Two thoughts. First: What is so threatening about acknowledging that experts (midwives, and by extension the medical professionals they might call on in an emergency) can offer truth that you might not have access to? Is it narcissism run wild? Pathological fear of authority? Reluctance to allow ANYONE inside your own inner circle?
Second: What is so horrifying about acknowledging that our bodies DON'T always work the way they should? What are we losing by saying: Help, this isn't OK?
Here's my very personal take on this, both experiential and theological.
Experiential: Baby #1 was determined not to come out. At 42+ weeks, when he was over 10 pounds and tucked in head up with no prospect of labor starting and amniotic fluid diminishing, my OB recommended a C-section. Done. (At that point I'd have done anything to be not pregnant, to be honest.) Baby #1 came out with meconium in his lungs because he was so past due. He was resuscitated, he is now a happy adult with three younger siblings, and if I'd waited it out, we'd both be dead and those three younger siblings wouldn't exist. (None of them were C-section, FWIW, because my European-trained OB, the one who recommended the initial surgery, also believed in paying attention to what our bodies could do under normal circumstances.)
Theological: I'm a Christian. I do believe that a woman's body was originally designed to give birth without complication. I also believe that our bodies don't do what they were originally designed to do, because we live in a universe that has been marred by sin. We die (we weren't meant to die). We get sick (not part of the plan). We cannot "trust the process" because the process has been disrupted. Science, thank God, has given us tools to fight back against the disruption.
The cultish language of "trust your body" in this particular movement is nothing more than a religious assertion. The body is the god.
Perhaps younger women who lived through puberty and didn't suffer from agonizing cramps or crippling infections still think that they can "freebirth" because their bodies haven't yet shown them what can happen?
Or perhaps "trust your body" is an expression of narcissim that refuses to admit that the help of others is a vital part of adult existence?
I'm struggling here because I absolutely believe that women are systematically disregarded by the medical establishment. But this manifestation of resistance? Tragic and self-defeating.
Dead babies should not be the fruit of protest.
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Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world
www.theguardian.com
A year-long investigation reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors7 days ago
As a mother who had 8 births with midwives, and I have a sister-in-law and niece who are highly trained midwives, I appreciate your comments that take into consideration both women's betrayal by male medicine, and the cult/fundie mentality that despises education and expertise. We need common sense, not extremes. And the fringe types can set us back from what has been gained.
I agree with your theological argument but I think medical practice has forgotten the first part - that there was a good design originally, so instead of just trying to help when labour does go wrong because of the fall, they try to interfere with the original good design. Labour does work well in a lot of cases when not interfered with, but that is almost impossible in hospital. As someone who has twice experienced labour slow down when midwives arrived and given birth before they arrived once, I can see the appeal of freebirth but I'd always rather have midwives there if possible and I've always appreciated their help for something after the birth (placenta/stitches/minor PPH etc). Women do face a difficult decision; on the one hand, hospital birth is demonstrably less safe than home birth for most women (Reitsma et al. 2020), but if something does go wrong in an unassisted birth it can go very wrong. Living in a country where most women have access to free midwifery care at home, it is the obvious safest option but it gets denied to so many women for non-evidenced reasons or staffing problems so it's not surprising if some of them then reject medical advice entirely. Personally I have only rejected "medical" advice where I have accessed scientific papers that contradict it but women shouldn't be having to find this themselves, we need good evidence-based resources in plain English that midwives/Drs can point mothers to when they need to make informed decisions about their care rather than trying to coerce them with lies, otherwise it's not surprising if they end up on freebirth society and think it sounds more plausible than non-evidenced stuff they've heard from doctors. For example, Sarah Wickham has written really good balanced summaries of the research but isn't anti-science/medicine. And the doctors often need pointing back to the science too - we have research and could easily do more into why physiological birth is less prone to complications and how to facilitate that (or rather how to not do things that directly interfere with it). If obstetricians and hospital midwives spent a bit more time learning why their system causes problems in the first place and then corrected their problems, they'd be happier to support women at home, hospitals would become safer, and women would be happy to transfer care when needed.
All I know is the medical establishment as it stands right at this very moment has failed women and their babies. So I get how this has come about. What to do about it? Haven't a clue.
What I'm about to say is not NEARLY in the same league as dead babies, but this is somewhat similar to the mentality that says, "Learning is as natural as breathing! My children are learning every second of every day! So I will get out of the way and not trouble them with 'artificial' methods of education! Their education will unfold naturally!" And then you end up not with dead babies but with children who needed, if not special intervention, at least some kind of plan and structure. When your child is 12 and cannot read, it's not because he's on his own timetable and just hasn't blossomed yet; there is some underlying issue that needs to be addressed. To ignore that is irresponsible and neglectful, and I believe it stems from a similar mentality as what this article describes.
I highly recommend the book Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age. It’s a funny, readable, relatable memoir of very anxious and very online motherhood. The author actually went on one of the FBS retreats (for research purposes 😆).
The beginning of the article is like a horror story! I couldn’t finish because it brought up too much trauma from my medically mismanaged births and failures from the natural birth community. I’ve seen and experienced how wrong it can be on both sides. Fixing any of it seems insurmountable.
I think, like with so many topics, the middle is where we need to be. I had issues with childbirth and am grateful for a hospital setting to birth my five kids. I was also dismissed and told I had anxiety by three doctors when I had concerns about my heart starting back in 2017. It turns out I had a birth defect no one checked me for, and I had surgery in October of 2020, when I took myself without a referral to a cardiologist. I continued to have many health issues after my surgery and healed in a very alternative way. I'm all for natural ways to heal and conventional medical intervention when I need it, especially when it involves emergencies. I have a doctor now who is integrative and functional, has helped me with many natural remedies, and gets to the root cause, but he isn't afraid to use prescriptions and surgeries when I need them, and I'm grateful for that balance. When we silo off into either extreme, it becomes a cult. Medicine should be individualized, and practitioners need to listen to better understand and view the body as a whole, not as siloed systems. There is a place for changing habits and addressing dysfunctions rather than just jumping to meds, and yet there is a time and place for medication to get through a situation. We should always be looking for long-term solutions to heal, not just symptom management.
My book club read this book last week: Invisible Rulers about online Influencers. And then I went to Texas Tribune's Trib Fest. One thing is clear these people endanger our lives.
As a Neonatal ICU nurse I ran to many deliveries and “brought babies back to life”. I am thankful that God has given us brains and the capability to figure out modern medicine. This knowledge is definitely God given.
While I, too, am very disturbed by the commitment to avoid medical intervention even when it’s necessary for the life and health of either party, I conclude that this mindset is in part due to the general disregard for women’s mental and emotional needs during pregnancy and childbirth. Women tend to seek alternatives to hospital birth when they are shamed for having a preference or they feel coerced into agreeing to something that isn’t actually urgently needed after their provider fails to explain benefits, risks, and alternatives. What I’ve observed after giving birth myself and working as a doula and childbirth educator is that when women feel respected as actual people they are more likely to trust their providers when their provider says intervention is necessary. This “movement” is the unfortunate and extreme result of cult-like group-think, but we aren’t going to pull people back to reality without validating their fears and acknowledging the reasons they initially considered this option.
I had some complications with my hospital birth- my body and my baby hated the epidural… so I researched natural birth more before my second child. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ian May Gaskins has this kind of beautiful encouraging language this group seems to have stolen for their use. But that book talks about why you do want a midwife there to help and when to go to a hospital or call 911. It gave real statistics on how likely you are to need medical help and what to watch out for. I had 2 beautiful home births with midwives but I wasn’t just trusting “nature” but also their many years of experience and knowledge about when to help or how.
These women in particular are narcissists but wanting to have a free birth or avoid medical intervention isn't narcissism. I was going to choose free birth out of a lot of fear but I "surrendered" to the fact that I knew I didn't have enough knowledge or skill to be alone. I dont feel any shame for not wanting to struggle alone or for resisting care in ways that I did either. I dont have to trust every medical choice just because everyone else wants to guilt trip over every single choice you make as a mother. I was so lucky because I live close to memorial hermann downtown which has some world class physicians- and my nurses were very trauma informed. I will always be grateful for them. But other women aren't as lucky and it isnt a guarantee of safety to be in a hospital.
If I had a friend who was parroting some of the ideas discussed by this group, I would definitely have questions about their thought process and whether they understood the possible consequences of foregoing most/ all medical assistance with their birth. That said, I do think that one's level of risk tolerance related to pregnancy is really up to the pregnant person at the end of the day. Having recently given birth for the first time where I decided to transfer out of hospital care to a birth center that better suited my birth goals, it has come to my attention the level to which even assisted home birth is vilified by the powers that be. When looking into whether my insurance would cover such a scenario, I was surprised to find Blue Cross Blue Shield (which rarely takes a public stance on anything) has a whole diatribe online against home birth. I wonder what is in it for them? I don't think that any version of maternal care should be spared criticism and cults are bad, but I do find myself raising my eyebrow at the fact that this is story so dominant in the algorithm and so many things that are wrong with standard hospital care are not...
I’d be dead had I not been in a hospital. I developed HELLP syndrome with both kids. Though funny add-on story: with my second one, I was a returning adult college student, back to get another degree. I was halfway through a final exam when I suddenly developed symptoms of HELLP, which I recognized from the first time. I walked up to the professor and calmly said, “I’m so sorry I can’t finish your exam; I need to get to the hospital ASAP,” and I walked to the parking lot, called my husband (who was on campus) and lay down on the sidewalk to try to bring down my bp until he pulled up. In retrospect, I should have called 911. I did end up with an A in the class— biology.
Your theology paragraph is excellent! The God who made the bodies to give birth also made the brilliant scientific minds. Science can be used with humility and gratitude, just like our bodies can. However, you can understand that when women see science used in arrogance and blindness, they overcorrect and throw it all away. Balance is always so hard to find.
I posted an interesting article on how c-sections need an overhaul in how we are closed up. I am grateful that c-sections are available (mine saved my life) but how we are sewn back together often leads to complications, then and later in our lives.
I did try to read it, but I couldn't get through the whole thing. So rough. Wow, what women from other times would give to have a midwife present when they could not. So sad. First birth- breech cesarean, 2nd- home birth vbac, third- birth center vbac. Could not have done it on my own, and I am so thankful for my doctors, midwives, and husband!
Thank you for sharing your personal experience and thoughts! I have always felt deeply unsettled by the "trust your body" language. Especially when propogated by Christian women. Many seem not to acknowledge the Fall, or to have wrestled with its implications, when it comes to health, bodily process, and food, preferring to exert themselves in the self-righteous works of the Wellness Cult.
As one of my best friends who worked in developing nations and saw high infant and maternal mortality says, “there’s a reason we give birth in hospitals.” There’s such a delicate balance that needs to be struck, which it’s clear that the free birth movement doesn’t allow for. I wish more people sought out midwives who practice in a hospital, so that if there were complications, a doctor would on hand to scrub in and do a c-section.
Susan this hits so close to home. My exwife was all about natural child birth/home birth and now some of my kids have found FBS. Not sure what to do as a dad…
And now I need to read the article as I was commenting on your thoughts first.
I also had a baby over 10 lbs. I never dilated. Thank goodness for c-sections and modern medicine!
Thank you for shedding light on this topic! The wild birth movement likes to forget the high maternal and infant mortality rate associated with natural childbirth historically. Coupled with evolutionary changes to newborns as a result of medical interventions in the past 100 years......
My first was an emergency c section with trauma. Five VBACs. Beautiful births. Six healthy children. Susan Wise Bauer, thank G-d for medical miracles. And thank you for sharing your gifts.
Thank you for saying what I have been thinking all this week.
