womens issues

Remember Holidays with Your Mother?

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Dr. Martha talks about holidays with family throughout her life in Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers.

The word Lent has multiple meanings, and somehow it came to mean the forty days before Easter Sunday beginning on Ash Wednesday. One explanation is that the 40 days represent the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert. There was also this tradition—the only word I can think to describe it because it wasn’t a rule—of giving up something for Lent. It was supposed to be a sacrifice: an offering from me to God in exchange for blessings or grace. We Catholics always wanted more grace. I seem to have some vague memory that having enough grace was a way to cancel out the bad stuff and save one from Hell. Another possibility was that our giving up something may have been because Christ fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and therefore you could give up one thing for 40 days. The sacrifice was in giving up something that you value. You don’t give up spinach or finishing homework. Kids would give up candy or soda or maybe watching their favorite TV show during Lent. These days, I suppose kids could give up using electronics. As my children got older, I suggested that rather than giving up something—which usually was pretty silly anyway—that they would give something. They could volunteer somewhere or give away the things that they no longer needed or wanted. It made more sense to me to help the community.

Interesting, over the years, how much of the religion has been removed from the major Catholic holidays. At least for us “ambiguous Catholics.” I still put up a manger scene at Christmas and have given all my grandchildren some form of manger or birth of Christ storybook at one time or another. But for Easter, it’s been all about the fun of egg dyeing and Easter baskets. My bad. I’m not alone in this though. Easter parades, Easter eggs, Easter candy, all the fun stuff have been around since the 1700s. Here’s a little-known factoid about Easter candy that I’ve learned over the years while teaching Chinese medicine in Turkey. It turns out that jellybeans, some say, have their origin all the way back to a Biblical version of Turkish Delight.

Dr. Martha Shares How Motherhood Has Changed Over the Last 50+ Years

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In Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers, Dr. Martha discusses 4 generations of motherhood.

But I wish they had lived longer. I have bunches of patients who are my age and whose parents are alive, or at least one is alive. I envy that. I tell people that my parents died young because I do think that 76 and 77 are young. Too young to be dead. I have a four-generation picture of my mother’s mother, my mother, me, and my daughter Audrey. I had always imagined that I would be in another four-generation picture. It would be my mother, me, one of my children, and their child—my grandchild. But Mom didn’t make it long enough for that to happen. My hope is to still have a four-generation picture. This one will be of me, my child, their child, and my grandchild’s child. Yep, planning to be a great-grandmother!

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.

Dr. Martha Shares the Challenges of Being a Single, College Student, Working Mom Ready to Date

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Being a single working mom attending college is hard enough. Find out what happened to Dr. Martha when she was also ready to date.

Twenty somethings date. So I did. In my mind, I can’t apologize or punish myself enough for not being at home with my children every minute that I wasn’t at work or in school. Did you say Catholic guilt? Oh, I’m an expert at that. I was guilty then and I’m still guilty. I will never make it up to them for their worse than average childhood, but I keep trying. More fodder for therapy.

Some ten years after I got divorced, I met my current husband. I told my parents that I had had my first marriage annulled, so it was “okay” in the eyes of God for me to get married again. What a bunch of bull. And here’s one more crazy, bullshit thing. My husband and I slept in separate rooms while my parents were in town for our wedding. We pretended we were practicing celibacy for my parents. We were lying. One might say we did that so my parents wouldn’t be uncomfortable with us sleeping in the same bed in their presence. Or, you could say that I still wanted my parents to love me, to accept me, to think I was a good person. I was still trying to be someone they could be proud of.

As an adult, did you lie to your parents about your non-Catholic behavior?

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.

Dr. Martha’s Experience as a Single Mom in the 70s

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You've come a long way, babe. That's what Dr. Martha shows in the chapter about her divorce in Catholic Daughters of Catholic Mothers. In this excerpt she shows her willingness to challenge the beliefs of the day and set her life on a nontraditional path.

My D I V O R C E

Naturally, I was taught that marriage is for life. If you got divorced, you weren’t allowed to remarry unless the first marriage was annulled. You could be divorced in the “eyes of the state” but not in the “eyes of God.” It’s because God joins the couple in marriage. Yes, God is there at your wedding, securing your vows. The vows are between the couple and God Himself. I’d say, “or Herself” but we’re talking back in the 70s, so I’ll go with the feeling of that day: God is male.

Anyway, I got divorced when the kids were about 2, 3, and 6. We had a regular dad goes to work and mom (me) stays home life, but I wanted what I called “freedom.” Their father was a good guy, hard worker, but I wanted to finish college and not just be a stay-at-home mom. I wanted to help stop the nuclear power plant, Marble Hill from being built across the river from where we lived.

The kids and I moved out of the house, and visitation was set up. I enrolled at the University of Louisville and got a job with a group called The Senate of Religious. One day I was telling my boss, Sister Mary Claire, that the kids and I needed a place to live. Lo and behold, she knew of an empty rectory—of all places—that the pastor of the parish would rent to us for very low rent. He was willing to do that because there was a group of retired ladies who played Bingo in the large front parlor once a month. He wanted the rectory to have some life in it, some cleanliness in it, so it was ours. But what a spot! It was a mess! My brother John—God love him—came down for a few weeks to clean up the place for us. He literally hosed down the first floor. Really, he took a garden hose and washed it from ceilings to floor. We put a roach bomb in the kitchen and came home to a sheet of roaches covering every appliance. Ugh. But it had an enormous kitchen, living room, three bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, and even an office where I could study.

Did you grow up in a divorced family?