Historic Women

     Hello Again and thank you for taking a Moment with Mel. I couldn’t let Women’s History month pass without acknowledging the humans who are responsible for incubating and delivering one of our most precious resources in this world. Today we are talking about how Historic, Women are. For our purposes, Historic is having great and lasting importance.

     Women, you are one of society’s cornerstones. Never let the privilege and honor that God has bestowed on you be minimized. You are not Baby Mamas, you are Mothers of our Future. Walk in that Power and Purpose.

     The intent of this post is not to make anyone feel blamed or shamed, but to remind us of how Historic we are and how truly monumental the time that our children spend in us and around us those first years is. In my book 51 Revolutions to Me, my poem “Overground Railroad” talks about the need for us to build a railroad of knowledge to take us from one state of being to the next level. It has a quote by Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. 

     I have been reading a book titled Scattered Minds. The author, Gabor Mate, is a Family Physician and a world-renowned expert on ADHD and Addiction. If you have a loved one suffering with any of these two medical conditions, you have to read or listen to the book. It explores many themes. What I want to talk a little about is the information about how monumental pregnancy and the first two years of life are.

     Mate was born in January 1944 in Budapest, Hungary, 2 ½ months after he was born, Hungary came under German occupation. Two days after, his mother called the pediatrician to ask him to come see him because he wouldn’t stop crying. He told her, I will come but “all my Jewish babies are crying”. Unknowingly and not because she didn’t love him, Mate’s brain development and chemistry was being changed by his mother’s anxiousness, stress level and fear. As an adult, Mate was diagnosed with ADHD and his three children have also been diagnosed with the same. Even though he was successful in many ways, the psychological and emotional damage from that period significantly impacted his life and subsequently, the life of his children. Dr. Mate has 2 really good interviews on YouTube that you can pull up, one with Jay Shetty and one with Mel Robbins. 

     There are additional situations that we put our unborn and young children in that also have profound, lifelong, generational effects. Environment has a far greater impact on the structures and circuits of the human brain than was realized even a decade ago.  Of all environments, the one that most profoundly shapes the human personality is the invisible one: the emotional atmosphere in which the child lives during the critical early years of brain development.

     Eye contact, intensity of glance, body language, tone of voice and above all, day-to-day joy or emotional fatigue exhibited in the presence of the child are very impactful.

     I was listening to a sermon by Sarah Jakes Roberts the other day titled, “Fill the Gap”. In it, she talks about “Doing the right thing wrong”. Believing with all our might that we are doing the right thing but later finding out that we are wrong.  Remember, no judgment, just knowledge.

      For example, as immigrants or first generation out of poverty, we put a lot of time and energy into providing for our children’s physical needs. We focus more on the opportunity to provide things that we did not have. It comes at a price. It often causes us to not have time for things that are equally as important. Providing for our children’s physical needs is important but equally important is providing for our children’s emotional needs. We think that we can “hustle hard” when they are young and when they are older, we can spend more time with them. Because we do not realize how important that early window is, we miss important periods of attunement and attachment that change our children’s brain chemistry. By the time we do have the time when they are older, there is damage done that we or they cannot easily come back from.   

    The human brain is the most complex entity in the universe. At times in the first year of life, new synapses are being established at a rate of three billion a second. Anything that threatens the mother’s emotional security, may disrupt the developing electrical wiring and chemical supplies of the infant’s brain. The Prefrontal Cortex is responsible for social intelligence, impulse control and attention. Do you think society is having trouble in those areas? I do.

     Abuse suffered by the mother in any form hurts our children, toxic relationships hurt our children, extended periods of stress (work included), hurt our children. Staying until they are 18 might not be the right move.

     It is recommended that we have at least 2 years in between pregnancies. As a nurse, I knew the significance from a physiological standpoint for the mother and her body but with this new lens, this also really helps to foster that attunement and attachment for each child, to set them up for success psychologically and emotionally also.

     Women, we have to walk in our Purpose, we have to truly understand what we have been Bestowed and Entrusted with. We have to do everything we can to be the most consistently available, nurturing caregiver we can be. Partners, do everything in your power to help create that environment and support the mother of your child/children. Whether you are together or not. If you have a mom to be or mom in your life who could use some support, be there for her. 

     If we embrace the significance of this time, we will impact EVERY addiction, EVERY medical condition, every Behavioral Health condition. These are the most important years of our lives. We can break generational curses and make the world a better place. Thank you to all the Historic Women who brought us here and the ones we will use “The Overground Railroad” to support and educate.