self care

Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers is the Perfect Mother’s Day Gift

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Mother's Day is fast approaching. Have you thought about what you'll get Mom or Grandma this year? If they grew up Catholic during the 60s and 70s, they will love Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers, a walk down a memory lane of baptism, naming ceremonies, confession, confirmation, marriage, divorce, and much much more.

Dr. Lucas candidly recounts memories of her Catholic daughter's childhood: beginning with her parents choosing which saint to name her after and continuing through her Catholic grade school education, taught by nuns, the founders of America’s parochial schools. Experience the strict discipline and rules of a system where independent thinking was discouraged. Everything was forbidden, everyone was a sinner, and every action put students at risk for “going to hell.”

Girls formed lady-like identities regulated first by school uniforms, then by the cult of the Virgin Mary, and last by the ceremonies that parishioners were forced to endure over and over again. Parents and elders were to be obeyed and respected, their wishes anticipated, while children were expected to accept punishment out of the fear of God. After all, obedience was a gift from the Holy Spirit. 

The journey continues into adulthood with Dr. Lucas’s willingness to question authority, grapple with her own identity, and slide into becoming what she lovingly calls an “ambiguous” Catholic. She offers a visceral account of Catholic guilt, desire, piety, anger, and the superstitions that shaped the Catholic upbringing. For some, this still permeates their lives as adults. 

Who were Catholic Daughters? Why did these young women work so hard to fit into the Catholic mold, even to the extent of making up sins? And what kinds of sins did you make up when you were a kid just so you’d have something to say to the priest in the confessional booth? This provocative question at the end of the “Confession” chapter is just one that is at the core of Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers. 

This book and its guided journal questions emerged from Dr. Lucas’s experiences and desire to help others discover their truth and speak it out loud. Buy this journal now and begin an exploration of yourself and your inner beliefs. You’ll reconstruct the traces of your Catholic mother-daughter nexus, remember your personal accomplishments, get a better understanding of your embodied self, and reflect on important life lessons. By completing the journal exercises,  you can discover your own truth and live more authentically, even if you aren’t a Catholic Daughter of a Catholic Mother.

The Fun Parts of Motherhood: Naming Babies and More

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Dr. Martha Lucas has an interesting story about how she was named. This and much more from her on being a baby in her Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers book about life as a Catholic woman in the 60s, 70, and beyond.

They named me after Saint Martha, the patron saint of housewives, servants, and cooks. Catholics turn to her when dealing with chronic stress and doubt. Martha was a worker, keeping everybody fed and dressed in clean clothes, while her sister Mary had chosen “the good portion.” What’s meant by this old saying is that Mary was concerned with more spiritual things. She was the sister who spent countless hours conversing with Jesus almost to the exclusion of practical and domestic matters that were more suitable burdens for Martha.

During my birth, my mother suffered through a very long and hard labor—I obviously didn’t want to come out. A priest even gave her the last rites. My mother and father decided that if she lived and the child lived, and it was a girl, the child would be named Martha. A boy would be named John Jr., which was already a given. Well, it was me… Martha Lucas. It’s the name they gave me and the name I’ve kept. Admittedly, I’ve changed it due to marriage even though the man to whom I am married now has the opinion, “why would you take my name? I don’t own you. You are not my property.”

The Complications of Mother Daughter Relationships

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Dr. Martha talks about shaming women about their appearance, a thing that seems timeless. Did your mother preach modesty or let you choose what you wore? Here's an excerpt from Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers and one of Dr. Martha's experiences on the topic from when she was growing up.

Modesty and shame. Strangely, I think they go together or at least have gone together in my life. My mother’s focus on modesty created a body image problem that still haunts me to this day. I can never be thin enough. Thank God that never translated into an eating disorder. It’s just a daily worry about being fat: criticizing my body, wondering if I can weigh less, and distressing about ballooning into a fat blimp in a flash. One day I have a waist and the next I’m 100 pounds overweight. Kind of like what I said about my mother previously, having a waist after she had my youngest brother and then, before my eyes, she was fat. That’s what I have told myself for more than 50 years. Intellectually, I know she didn’t become overweight overnight, but the story I’ve told myself is exactly that. It happened in the blink of an eye. And so, I believe it can happen to me. The scale will just keep going up, and I won’t be able to stop it. I must be vigilant. I was 10 years old when mom had a waist. After that, all I remember is the overweight body. The body hidden in tent dresses.

There’s a sense of shame in all things body related. But it’s more than just shameful if I wear too short a skirt, or too low-cut a blouse, or too sexy a dress, or no bra in public. The not wearing a bra thing. You know why that will never happen, me being in public without a bra? Because when I was about 16 years old in the days of burning bras, I went to work one day without a bra. It just so happened that Mom came to the mall that day, saw me without a bra on, and made me ask my boss for a break so I could go buy a bra. Yep. That was her response. Not “Martha! Don’t ever go out again without wearing a bra. And by the way, you’re grounded for a week.” Nope. It’s always black or white… good or bad. She made me buy a bra and put it on before I went back to work. And I still think about that episode of our life together. God, I hope I never made my girls feel that way, embarrassed and terrible about not wearing a piece of underwear. And the why of it. Why do I have to wear a bra? Because men, disgusting men, will see me as a sex object? Will going braless make me want to have sex? Are nipples a body part to be hidden? Will people think I’m a slut? Mom never explained why all those thoughts are in my mind when I don’t wear a bra. God forbid our handyman should show up one day when I’m casual at home without a bra on. What would he think? “That’s ridiculous,” my intellectual brain says, but my rat brain says, “Don’t do it.”

How did your mother talk to you about your body if she talked to you about it all?

Dr. Martha Shares Why Women Should Set Aside Time for Self and Breathe

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Dr. Martha learned the importance of taking time for self from her experiences as a child. She knows what it's like to spend too much time worrying and what it does to the body mind and spirit. In this excerpt she shares her story and one way you can relieve stress.

Martha's Rat Brain

Trauma is a strong, scary word. But honestly, my childhood experience drives my animal brain to think that if one of our appliances breaks, we’re going to go bankrupt. My go to emotion is fear and the worst possible outcome. All those years of sitting on the steps, waiting for my dad to come home safe, thinking of the absolute worst thing that could happen to most kids, a parent dying, has left its mark. I was a worried, scared, helpless, poor kid. And that’s the message that my amygdala, my animal brain, transmits throughout my body all the time. Sometimes I wonder how I would be different if I had been nurtured through that worry. How would I be different if my mother had soothed me somehow that Dad would be home, not to worry? Hugged me. But that never happened. For one thing, I snuck out of my room after she went to bed. As far as I know, she had no idea that I sat on the steps every night. She had no idea that I worried, waited for him to come up the stairs, and then could go to bed. I must have been flat out exhausted as a kid.

According to both modern medicine and Chinese medicine—my career is a combination of both—our lungs hold grief. They don’t work well if we’re holding on to grief. And we need a healthy breathing cycle in order to have a strong immune system. No wonder I had asthma. My twenty-plus years of practicing Chinese medicine has also shown me that I’ve inherited my father’s fear. DNA is energy; we inherit the energies of our parents, our grands, our great grands, on and on. We are helpless not to inherit it. Dad’s father ran off and his mother committed suicide when he was five, leaving him abandoned, alone. So, there’s that inherited part of my rat brain, even older than my sitting on the stairs, hoping he’d come home alive.

That’s my legacy; yours is hopefully different.

Breathe. One of my favorite breathing methods, the one that I suggest to my patients, is to breathe deeply from the belly up. Yes, belly up. Your belly will expand when you breathe deeply. Bring your breath up and then start the exhale from the top of your chest down to the belly. It’s circular. Bottom up… top down. It gets you into your body and out of your animal brain.