māmā.aloha.ʻāina

This week, my daughter started preschool.  She is attending a Hawaiian immersion preschool, and we are excited for her ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to be carried throughout her day-to-day life.  This is a little precursor to tomorrow’s post that will be more about my perspective on our transition so far with my daughter starting preschool.  This post focuses more on my week’s epiphany on feelings of vulnerability and how my daughter’s transition into preschool will be a collective ʻohana journey.

Vulnerability

Leading up to my daughter’s first week of preschool, I tried to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for this transition.  In trying to assess my emotions, I think I realized why I was so nervous: there’s a sense of vulnerability with trusting in the school, and other ʻohana whose keiki attend the school, and not wanting to be judged for X, Y, or Z.  Especially because our keiki are a reflection of us, my husband and I, our kūpuna and so on, I think one’s natural response to one’s keiki is to judge the parents–either positively or negatively.  I’m glad I was able to check myself as these feelings started to cause some anxiety because while I know that my husband and I aren’t perfect, we’re trying.  I wouldn’t consider my husband and I to be a blueprint for others to follow, but I know we must be doing something right.  We’re doing the best we can and that is enough.

Immersion, all in!

Shortly before my husband started law school, we’ve come to learn the saying that “when a family member goes to law school, the entire family goes to law school.”  This saying cannot be more true with my daughter starting at a Hawaiian immersion preschool.  My daughter’s preschool is generally known by many for the deep parent involvement.  The more I learn about the different ways that the parents will be involved, and the different kuleana, the more I keep thinking that this is the way that it’s supposed to be.  So here we go!  We’re all jumping in!

The Bar Exam.  Re-visited.  I am planning on taking the February 2016 bar exam.  Since I’ve already shared about my experience in not passing the bar exam the first time I took it, I thought it would also be helpful for those interested to know a little bit more about the bar exam.  My comments are specific to my personal experiences, and specific to the Hawaiʻi bar exam.

A bit of a dry post, but I hope this will continue to open the discussion about the bar exam.  Nation-wide, there are continuous efforts to evolve within law schools, the profession, and the different standards set forth.  On a more personal level, you’ll be more well-prepared if/when someone you know, or perhaps yourself, decides to take the bar exam.

A little background about the bar exam

The bar exam is a comprehensive exam that tests 13+ subjects, some subjects one may have taken in law school, but it is rare (in fact, I don’t know anyone for which this is not true) for someone to have taken every subject tested on the bar in law school.  Regardless, the bar exam is its own thing and may test different rules of a given subject area compared to what is taught in a semester law school course.  Many people will ask, “so what area of law do you specialize in?”  It doesn’t matter for the bar exam; one needs to know all subjects tested.

In Hawaiʻi, the bar exam is a two-day, all day test.  There are no scheduled breaks, with the exception of lunch.  The bar exam includes 6 essay questions (35 minutes each), 2 “closed universe”-type real lawyer assignments (90 minutes each), and notoriously known 200 multiple-choice questions.

There are two issues that I’d like to highlight regarding the bar exam studying process:  financial costs, and studying itself.

Financial costs are HUGE!

Ok, here it is:  it costs about $2000 to take the bar exam.  It is about $800 to take the bar exam, and upwards of $1200 for a preparatory course to help you study for the bar exam.

Aside from the costs that add up to just take the bar exam, it is usually recommended that a bar exam taker treat studying as a full-time job.  This means multiple things, but mainly that a bar exam taker does not usually work (for money) while also studying for the bar exam full-time.

Studying is…not (always) fun.

Studying day after day is difficult.  Add to studying everyday, the compounding factors of increasing insecurity of what you thought you already knew or learned, the trickiness of how the bar exam tests the material that one must know to be deemed competent, and the added pressure of what’s at stake with taking the bar exam to become a licensed attorney.

There’s a saying that the “law is a jealous mistress.”  Similar to law school, bar study can easily suck every minute of your day.  This may mean sacrificing attending a family event or outings with friends.  It is most difficult for me to see the sacrifices that my family must make in order for me to put my best effort forward to pass the bar exam, but I am forever appreciative for their support.

The flip side to studying being a full-time job is that stamina is key.  It is critically important to maintain balance to be able to sustain the marathon schedule of studying for the bar exam while also trying to “peak” at the right time on exam days.

Another piece to balance is to stay level-headed enough to not freak out because of the stress.  It can be especially difficult with some subjects that may seem foreign, especially when you haven’t studied the subject before.

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With that said, I am setting my focus on preparing to pass the February 2016 bar exam.  After not passing the bar exam, I re-visited why I want to pass the bar exam.  The reason why I want to pass the bar exam and become a licensed attorney is quite simple:  to best serve the Native Hawaiian community, my community that I had always set my goals on serving.

In hopes of maintaining balance throughout this process, I will focus my energy on being disciplined with my time and study schedule.  Focusing my energy on studying and following my personalized study schedule will enable me to take my scheduled breaks to enjoy with family.

Aʻo aku, aʻo mai.  To teach, to learn.  Or as I’ve experienced, it’s a give and take of sorts where I am not only the teacher to my children, but my children teach me.  I can’t pinpoint an exact event that brought this topic to my mind, but it has been something that continues to be at the forefront of my mind as I learn from my children daily.

There are a couple of different ways that this arises.  First, I continue to learn how I must keep myself in check and be aware of how I may be (implicitly or explicitly) imposing my personal biases.  Second, the lessons I’ve learned thus far in becoming a mother are widely applicable to various aspects of life.  In many ways, my children are teaching me so many more things than I am teaching them.

Aʻo aku

What I am explicitly teaching my keiki is often more easily tangible than what I am implicitly teaching my keiki.  This may seem obvious for some.  However, when teaching my keiki, I often times need to check myself and my own biases that I’m imposing on my keiki.

Interestingly, I see my daughter picking up on my biases that I am portraying, whether explicitly or implicitly, when she “mirrors” it back to me.  In addition to biases, and this is likely more obvious, my daughter will also mimic my behaviors.

A note on implicit biases:  I took a class in law school called Implicit Bias, and we used these tests on this website to assess our implicit biases.  It’s very eye-opening!  Check it out!

Aʻo mai

Recently, while my daughter was reading (she can’t technically read yet, but she’s pretty much memorized the story and will flip through the book and “read”/paraphrase the story from memory) through one of her books, she asked me what something was and pointed to the object.  This isn’t new behavior for my daughter.  She’ll often “quiz” me, or anyone who is reading with her, probably because we ask her the same questions.  Nevertheless, I asked her what it was so that she would answer.  She kept asking me so I thought that maybe she didn’t know.  So I answered her and she said excitedly while clapping her hands, “pololei, Māmā!  Maikaʻi!” (correct, Māmā!  Good!), similar to what I usually tell her.  I laughed and thought of how I am more often the student than I probably realize when it comes to my keiki.

More broadly, as a non-native speaker and someone that began as the least knowledgeable person with regards to ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi between my husband and I, my keiki have forced me to up my game, especially with ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.  Speaking only ma ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to our keiki, it has forced me to learn how to express myself when I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say.

Many transitions seemed to have been taking place this year.  The transitions are not only on a personal level, but also experienced as an ʻohana.  I remember before giving birth, I would always think “what is it like to go from one child to two?”  I’m still new to this new gig, but here’s how I would fill-in-the-blank to the following sentence.

Going from one child to two is _________.

• Amazing – it’s hard to imagine how you can love your one child so much, and then love another child just as much.  I’m not sure how it all happens, but it’s magical.
• Constant – when one is on the toilet, the other will want to nurse.  When they are sleeping, the urge to do things that you’ve been meaning to get to is even stronger than it was when you just had one baby (or at least in my experience).  After getting lunch ready, it will be time to nurse again, and after nursing it’ll be time to put them down for their nap.
• At times, chaotic – sometimes you’ll just want a break.  Breaks are good!
• Somewhat the same – the laundry will still be there, the dishes will still be there.  Some days are easier than others.  There are still only 24 hours in a day.
• Like becoming an octopus – at times, I’ll think that I won’t be able to carry everything on top of having to carry our two babies.  Then, as if I’ve grown six additional arms/legs, it all ends up working out.
• Like nothing else – with the intensity and continuity of having two babies, there seems to be double the amount of craziness and magic.  When I need it most, my eldest daughter will tell me, “it’s ok, Māmā” and be so loving.  People have said how siblings start to really enjoy each other’s company when the younger sibling is around 6 months old.  In our experience, it seems that since birth, our girls really took to each other and we notice how loving our eldest daughter is to our younger daughter, and how our younger daughter reacts to our eldest daughter.  All-of-a-sudden, after our youngest daughter was born, it’s as if our older daughter grew up really quickly!

Typically, our day starts off with breakfast, then when baby is taking a quick nap, I’ll work on some haʻawina (lesson) with my older daughter.  Some mornings I’ve been taking the girls to go walking so we can get out of the house for a little bit and get some exercise.  Before we know it, it’s time to start getting lunch ready.  My older daughter usually eats lunch, and I may eat a little something to hold me over ’til I eat lunch.  But, I’m usually tending to both girls around lunch time.  While my older daughter is eating, I’m usually helping her eat, or telling her to sit down and eat, and breastfeeding the baby.  Girls will take a nap around 1pm, then I will usually do some cleaning up and rest as well.  Girls are usually up by 4pm, and before we know it, Pāpā is home.

Some of our weekly craft activities.

With that said, I like that we have a loose schedule.  I’m happy now that baby is old enough to go outside of the house, and have found that works well for all of us to have a balance of spending our mornings outside of the house and days where we stay home.  We are quite busy bees with our weekly activities, much busier than I anticipated!  So much so that I started to write a short notation on a calendar to keep track or what we do everyday.

Transitioning to Being a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM)

Transitioning to being a SAHM is a totally different, but sometimes overlapping, transition.  Initially, I remember thinking that maybe this SAHM gig wasn’t for me.  About three weeks after baby #2 was born, I had a chance to jump on my computer one day.  It was then that I realized that I missed having some time to surf the internet, hear myself think, or respond to emails.

As a SAHM, while I had these kuleana before transitioning to a SAHM, these kuleana have become more of my focus.  In my role as a SAHM, I am mainly focusing on the household things – preparing meals, cleaning – becoming (once again) the primary care provider for our girls, getting my older daughter ready for preschool, and what a job would call, “other related tasks.”  Within the “other related tasks” category are our ʻohana’s long-term goals, and project(s) that Elwen and I have been working on (more details to come soon!).

In preparing to transition to be a SAHM, I used to think that I was a pretty productive person that could multi-task.  Since becoming a SAHM, often times there are things that I want to do, but it will take about 5x longer to do that one task than anticipated.  There are times when I’m able to do things around the house while the girls are awake, but when they are napping, I usually want to nap (or at least rest) too.

Interestingly, I never expected to be so busy.  Sure, I expected to be busy with watching my girls, but I didn’t expect to be busy with our other endeavors.   But it is a welcomed busy, and I am honestly enjoying every aspect of being a SAHM – being able to watch my girls, provide for my family, and help to work towards our long-term goals.  It is a welcomed busy because we are able to control how busy we want to be and it also helps carve out space where I maintain my sense of self.

I feel myself growing and continuing to transition into this new role everyday.  By no means do I have this all figured out.  And as you can imagine, my girls are teaching ME!  At times I feel as if I’ve been benched while the rest of the team is playing for the game, but I KNOW that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing right now.  Ultimately, I’ll definitely cherish this time (especially with the sacrifices made to make this happen because it is well known how high the cost of living is in Hawaiʻi), and am soaking it all in!

I’d LOVE to hear how other mamas or papas have transitioned and their experiences!  Maybe transitioning to being a first time mom, or transitioning from one child to how ever many you have!

In various aspects of our lives, it seems that the constant struggle and goal is achieving balance.  Balancing play with work, or balancing rest with activity.  We, baby (37 weeks) and I, just finished the bar exam this week.  As we adjust back to “normal” life, and in further preparation for baby’s arrival, the constant struggle with achieving balance has re-centered itself to the forefront of my mind.  I definitely don’t have all the answers, and hope that you will share how you achieve balance.  What is balance?

I think I am not only struggling with figuring out what balance is–what that looks like, how does one maintain balance, etc.–but I am also riddled by society’s expectations.  Why is a mom expected to return to work 6-8 weeks after baby is born?  Why does one (male or female) have to work?  Sure, there’s the obvious answer of needing to make money.  But, really?  I wouldn’t describe myself as lazy, and I understand the reality of having to do “adult”-like things and pay our bills, but there must be a bigger reason.  Sure, I can see that when one has the “right” job that they’re meant to do, that one is passionate about, then the work may not seem like “work.”  But does this job also afford for flexibility to allow for one’s family to be a priority?

Again, I do not have the answers.  But, the way I see it, I would seek a job that would allow me the flexibility to ensure that my family remains a priority.  Perhaps this looks like allowing me the flexibility to bring my baby to work.  Perhaps this looks like my employer providing child care at my job.  Perhaps this looks like being allowed flexible hours, or even flexible work locations (e.g., the ability to work from home).  My husband often jokes with me that it is ironic that I am a stay-at-home mom considering that I went to school to earn three degrees.  And during our most recent discussion on the topic, the topic of this blog and this constant struggle began to crystallize.  What job is more important than raising your kids?

Our family goal and plan is for me to stay home with baby for at least the first year.  We did this with our first child, and found it to be meaningful not only for me as the primary provider, but also for our daughter.  In order to make this happen, we’ve had to make sacrifices.  And just for further context, while I would describe our lives as being very fulfilling and rich with all that we have, we are a family size of four with moderate income living in Hawaiʻi (a place that has a well-documented high cost of living).  While I may not have all the answers, we do have our ideals and hope to make it work.

How do you achieve balance?  In an ideal world, how would you describe the perfect job?  What are some things that you think a job could offer to enable you to make your family a priority?