Having a child brings many changes in life. Home visitors through The Next Door, Inc.. are available to parents who are pregnant or have given birth within the last three months. This program is voluntary, and it is free! There are no income requirements.
Family Services home visiting offers:
• Fun parent-child activities that encourage infant and child development
• The latest information about how babies grow, develop and learn both physically and emotionally
• Ways to bond with your baby
• Information about how to keep the family healthy
• Tips for parents about infant sleep, play, attachment, and much more
• Information about other community resources, like breastfeeding support and car seat installation
(Editor’s Note: Following is the first of three installments on programs offered by The Next Door, Inc., and what you can do to help children and their families).
Some days we look good on the outside, but on the inside we feel sad and afraid. Greta feels like this every day.
Living in The Dalles with her three small children and her husband in a decent little house, you would never know that her heart aches that she’s having another baby boy.
She’s afraid that her husband will reject the baby, because he didn’t want another one. She’s afraid the cycle of pain that she experienced as a child won’t be broken.
The names in this story have been changed to protect their anonymity.
Growing up, Greta was beaten with a rope because she was a girl. In her culture, girls were not wanted. Boys were wanted. To protect her, her mother sent her away to live at her aunt’s house. This made her feel rejected, not only by her father, but by her mother too.
Her painful past haunts her. As time has passed, those intense feelings of rejection and abandonment have continued to brew in her heart.
She can’t sleep and she’s anxious — it overwhelms her. Even though she knows how to be a mother of three little ones, having this baby feels harder. Can she handle one more? Will her husband overcome his feelings of resentment at having another baby? Can she triumph over her past to feel strong and whole?
As a parent, can you imagine that kind of pain and agony?
When one of The Next Door’s highly-trained Family Services support staff met with Greta several months ago for a home visit, she thoughtfully listened to what was heavy on Greta’s heart.
Through a flood of tears, Greta shared her traumatic childhood story for the first time. She shared in great detail her childhood beatings and her deep sense of rejection and hurt. She felt incredibly relieved to be heard and understood.
Her heart’s desire is to break the family cycle of pain and abuse, and give her children a better childhood than she had. Our staff reassured Greta that they weren’t going to abandon her; that through our home visiting program help would come every week.
Through home visits, Greta received countless parenting tools, and developed goals for herself and her spouse. What is their value system? How do they want to raise their children successfully together?
They also received resources in the area on how to get Greta the emotional care she needed.
Today, Greta is feeling empowered, heard, helped, and most importantly valued. As she begins to hold onto these truths about herself, her children will also have a new sense of their value and worth.
How easy is it to overlook someone like Greta, a person who appears to “have it all,” a married mom of three with another baby on the way?
Without a visit from our caring family support staff, she may have continued trying to hold it all together on the outside, while suffering so deeply from unresolved trauma on the inside.
Thankfully, the The Next Door’s was able to help Greta improve not only her own life, but those of her entire family.
To learn more about The Next Door and its programs for parents, visit www.nextdoorinc.org or call 541-386-6665.
The Next Door is a local non-profit that has been serving The Dalles since 1984 and Hood River since 1971, as well as other areas with some programs.
The mission of the Next Door is to help people dicover new possibilities by strengthening children and families and improving communities.
We envision a supportive community where all children and families are safe, healthy, and valued.
— Carolyn Zuck is the communications specialist for The Next Door.
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