Flawed Perfection

May7

My mom was a mess. She’s pretty pulled together now, but when I was a kid, I remember wondering why she was such a flake. Her life was a stupefying Rube Goldberg machine of family life- bewildering in its intricacies and number of moving parts. Somehow she managed it with only an occasional dropped ball. As a kid, I didn’t see the complexity. I only knew that she frequently called me by my sister’s name and called my brother by the dog’s.

For years, I thought toast was made by burning it black and then scraping it down over the sink to the desired lightness of char. Mom was always barely remembering snack day, or coming home from the store with sour cream instead of cottage cheese and looking at the carton with an incredulous look that I now recognize as- “What the hell?”

My mom broke a hairbrush hitting it on the counter in frustration while trying to get three little kids, my dad, and herself ready for a professional portrait. (I’m surprised I got out of the ordeal with only uneven bangs.)

She was tired. She was flustered. She was awesome. She was perfect.

Since becoming a parent of multiple children, my opinion of my mom has gained significant altitude. I understand what it means to be at the mercy of a small tyrant who doesn’t give a fig if I haven’t slept since last Thursday. I struggle to keep my cool when we are late to school and one child is still shoeless. I understand why so many people drive around with forgotten mugs of coffee on their roofs. (Car companies- do us a solid and put a cup holder up there.) I know how endlessly fragmented parents’ brains are, how no task is ever completed- just started, and how a clean kitchen floor is a magnet for the spiteful side of buttered toast.

I yell. I get lazy. I forget all kinds of stuff. I want to quit. I need a vacation. I discipline out of desperation instead of wisdom. I am a flawed, messy human. How fortunate I am to have a flawed mother.

How else would I know that I am okay and not ruining three young lives? Mom did plenty of top-notch things. She fed us healthfully at nightly family dinners. She taught me to cook well, sew poorly, and knit only as a last resort. She made sure I could swim, ride a bike, provided opportunities for me to try a whole slew of activities, even when she knew they would amount to naught. She called bull on me when I needed it, listened when I needed that, and kept her mouth closed when an argument would have served neither of us well and I was too immature to bridle my own tongue.

But it’s her shortcomings that reveal the grace of imperfection. I need her blunders now as much as I needed her successes as a child; they bring me assurance and comfort. If Mom had always kept her temper, remembered all appointments, and remained smiley and well coiffed at all times, I would despair my own shoddy efforts at parenting and adult living in general. I would think my children doomed by having me for a mother, because I am a mess. Her example reveals the lie of perfection- it can’t be true because it isn’t honest. I am faulty. I needed a similarly flawed mother to teach me how to parent well despite my limitations and shortcomings.

Thanks, Mom, for forgetting to pick me up from sixth grade that one time. I needed that. Thanks for losing your temper and asking for forgiveness. What a good example you set. Thanks for always asking how my soccer game went, even though I played volleyball. You give me hope. Thanks for all the wise and unwise things you said. I only remember the wise ones. Really.

Parenting is a difficult job and the stakes are high, but unless your little dirty-handed booger eater is perfection incarnate, she needs someone like you to show her the way. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in my life. You are inspiring admirable women, imperfect and just right.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Laundry is for Suckers

Apr29

Washing machines: the best thing since washable fabrics.

I am a sucker, a chump, a fool. Every week, I wash and fold about eight loads of laundry. That’s pants, shirts, socks, dishtowels, sheets, etc. for five people. I fill my baskets with towers of uniform rectangles, folded according to the depth of their intended drawers so that the folded edge will stand next to all the others and a census of the drawer’s contents can be taken at a glance. I don’t put clothes away; I file them.

I organize drawers, ostensibly so people can see what they’ve got and find what they need. A week later, I walk upstairs and, in any room, am greeted by vomiting dressers, drawers spewing sleeves and pant legs over their lips. I grumble, shove the mess over, and make room for my neat little stack of good intention- all ready to be disheveled tomorrow.

Is there another household chore that takes as much time and is as equally futile? I can’t think of one. Cleaning out the fridge is important for organization and hygiene, even if the pickle jar with the bad lid ALWAYS tips over on the top shelf within a week of cleaning. Cleaning kid-level windows is a waste of time, but it isn’t something I do every week [read: year.]

Why do I do it? To model neatness? Because that is the way laundry has always been done and I’m a slave to tradition? I think I do it because deep down, I believe an organized laundry practice has merit. That said, all my trouble is only worth it if all parties agree to operate on the same system, and, well, they don’t.

It doesn’t matter to anyone but me if the drawers are neat. As long as there is a pair of underwear in there somewhere, I will hear nothing about it, good or bad. My children think the hamper is a folding machine- throw it in; it magically reappears in the drawer, clean and ready to wear. Do the children care if their clothes are wrinkly? No. Likely, smooth shirts would clash with their hair, which gets impressively sculptural under winter hats. Do I care if their clothes are wrinkly? No, not unless it’s picture day and the shirt has an archaeological aesthetic to its creases.

If I were sensible, I’d sell the dressers and get everyone two laundry baskets- one for above the waist, one for below. I would wash and dry clothes, sort them into north or south piles by owner and dump them into the appropriate baskets. The family could root around for what they want and I would save HOURS of wasted labor each week. You have to admit this system has merit. It saves loads of time and takes into account the reality of our clothing situation.

I currently entertain a Disney level fantasy of children and husband whistling while they refold their clothes and tuck them away in neat rows. There may even be songbirds folding t-shirts and chipmunks pairing socks. Then I get irritated when the reality falls short. This is not a smart mindset.

I must be chicken, or a little OCD. I can’t change my broken system. I don’t know why, because I’m able to let go of other futile endeavors: flattening my post 3-baby belly, singing bass-baritone, not letting the kids eat in the car. I would feel like such an iconoclast- giving folded laundry the old middle finger and getting rid of furniture that is full of pointless expectation.

I cannot wait until I can share laundry duty with the children. (rubs hands together and cackles.) They are learning to fold, and I give folding as a chore- especially if I catch a kid throwing clean clothes in the hamper/folding machine. I am determined; they will do more. The summer chore campaign is approaching. Will I make them keep their drawers neat? No, but drawers must close fully and there must be room for fresh laundry to fit. Will I make them fold in uniform shapes? Yes, they will learn the proper way, even down to how to fold fitted sheets. (Yes, it’s possible.) Then, if they choose a more chaotic laundry practice as adults, it will be by choice and not because they know no better. I hope that some day, my children will appreciate that daily dressing need not involve the added stress of scavenger hunts for matching socks and quests for the one pair of magical sparkle tights.

Even if they end up choosing a less fussy system, they will learn one important lesson from me: Sometimes you just have to do pointless stuff because that’s what the boss requires.

I’m gonna need you to fold those in thirds. M’kay?

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Apr22

Some parents are happy if their children read anything. I am not one of them. I’d rather my kids watch hours of “Dora the Explorer” than read some of the children’s “literature” out there.

Q recently checked out Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life from the school library. Guess what? I don’t love it. It’s in the tradition of pandering books about silly girls with bad attitudes and nasty mouths who manufacture social drama in the name of plot. The fact that “dork” is slang for “penis” is a minor gripe. Go ahead; check it out. I linked to the series’ website so you can judge based on the most complementary angle on this drivel, tripe, book-like object.

I cannot control what she chooses at the library. She goes with her class, and I am not about to ask her teacher to censor Q’s selections based on my criterion. She is a classroom teacher, not a nanny. This is not a battle I want to pick, because it is not one I can possibly win, and frankly, I don’t think it is necessary. Books let us try on someone else’s life and explore new worlds with only an investment of time. There is even a place for mindless and silly entertainment. I unapologetically loved “XENA: Warrior Princess” for years and consume PG Wodehouse novels like candy.

However, what we feed our minds matters as much as what we feed our bodies. A mind fed on a diet of pandering entertainment will be weaker and less healthy. Q’s behavior took a turn while she read this book. She got snippier, less happy, and Hot Swede noticed phrases from the book coming out of her mouth. When she read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, she played pioneer girl, we had discussions about the Native American/US relations, and I taught her how to embroider.

I won’t forbid her to read these garbage books, (Forbidding something is the quickest way to pique her interest.) but I did make scaffolding for her reading. I explained my concerns with this book and we talked about the importance of putting good things into our heads. She may read another of the Dork series, but must finish Anne of Green Gables first, and so it will go- rubbish, literature, dreck, literature. Hopefully, the trash will become less frequent by her choice. If she comes home with Fifty Shades of Grey, I’ll volunteer to chaperone library trips.

What children’s novels do you love? Which ones stink to high heaven?

More Than Mom

Mar27

Recently, I played a set of concerts with the vocal ensemble, Cantus. There were rehearsals, call times, and genuine ticket buying audiences. I did not plan on bringing my children to any of the performances. They are 8,6, and 4. Hot Swede would have to bring them by himself and he does not enjoy courting disaster.

After one concert, a friend of mine told me that I needed to bring my kids. I told her that they had come to a rehearsal and she said, “No, not good enough.” They needed to see their mom as a professional- in concert dress, under lights, making music in front of an attentive audience. I was immediately struck by the wisdom of her insight and grateful for it because it had not crossed my mind.

I take the raising of my children more seriously than I do anything else. I chose a career as a freelance musician and violin teacher knowing that I would want the flexibility when I had children. And when I got pregnant, Hot Swede’s job was the one with the health insurance so, duh, I stayed home.

As a woman of my generation and particular formal education, I have deeply engrained ideas about what it means to be a successful person; becoming a mother is a fine choice, as long as I don’t sacrifice my career. Being just a parent and spouse is not a valid option and is a waste of everything I’ve worked for and am capable of.

Another woman who would have benefited from a diversified identity

Well, guess what? That’s what I chose. I think it is the right choice for me and my family, but I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy and little nagging voices that tell me that what I do isn’t valued or respected and that I should have nurtured my nascent career. But I know myself and I know that if I tried to build both career and family with equal priority, I would do neither to satisfaction and I would carry crippling guilt about the state of both. Still, I hate being in social situations where everyone is asked what they do and some polite follow up questions about their work. If I say that I am a stay at home parent, that is the end of the conversation.

So I don’t say that, because I do try to hang onto the person I was before children. I say that I am a violinist, but am mostly a mom now. Up until last year, I taught lessons out of my home. (The reasons why I gave it up are for another post.) I play gigs for pay and chamber music whenever I get the chance and sometimes, I even practice. The hardest part is carving out the time and finding babysitters. But it is vital to remain true to who I am without kids, because, if I do my job well, they will grow up and leave me some day. And then what will I do?

The beauty of my friend’s counsel was that it considered the benefit to me as well as my children. Knowing that I struggle with balancing my identities as parent and freestanding person, it is important that my children become aware that I am more than their mother. I want them to know that I’ve made the choice to spend my years on them and that it is an action I take, not a consequence of their birth. As adults, they should know, if they or their partners choose a stay-at-home role, that doing so does not diminish the other facets of who they are or of what they are capable. And they should not readily sacrifice those aspects of self.

So, they attended the performance, because of the kind words of a friend and Hot Swede’s willingness to take the wheel of our family ship, Chaos. He told the children that they would have a surprise and they needed to be ready to go. I texted him when intermission started. The kids threw on their coats and shoes and got in the car. Their father drove the 3-minute drive to the hall and parked up on a snow bank, right in front of a hydrant. He unlocked the doors, pointed to the hall and said, “Run!” AJ got about 10 feet and stopped because her feet hurt. With no time to put her shoes on the right feet, Hot Swede scooped her up and ran to the hall, arriving just in time to usher them in quietly as the second half began. They stood in the back in their coats. I could see their huge smiles from the stage. Q gave me an enthusiastic double thumbs up. They were thrilled. Hot Swede backed them out of the hall after my piece, still carrying the misshod AJ, returning to his illegally parked car. I ran from the greenroom to meet them and thank their father for making it happen. I think Q sees me in a slightly different light- one with a touch of awe. That is just fine.

What a handsome blend of talent, skill, and imagination is Cantus. If you don’t know them, here is their NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Enjoy.

The Labor of Children

Mar12

My kids have chores because I want them to grow into functional adults. Also, I am mean and cruel and sneer like Cinderella’s stepmother. They sweep the ashes, black the stove, rub my bunions, slop the pigs and darn their own socks. Okay, I darn the socks (read: throw them away.)

Except I’m not usually this put together and my nose fits in a Chinese tea cup.

Daily, they must make their bed and put their clothes away. On weekends during school, they each have one housekeeping job to complete per day. I choose the jobs based on what is needed, how long it should take to complete, and how much whining I can stand. Common tasks include: sort or fold laundry, pair mismatched socks, sweep a room, wash cupboard fronts, empty the dishwasher, pull a bucket of weeds, pick sticks out of the yard, and organize books. It is not much, but it takes half a day and half my daily allotment of positive energy to enforce it (which is why they only have one job.)

I started daily chores last summer. The first morning of summer break, they each woke up to a job list like this: bed, piano, small job, small job, big job. 7 year-old Q got a written list; 5 year-old Bear and 3 year-old AJ got theirs in pictures. Happy summer! (insert sound of whip cracking.) Mouths hung agape; tears welled in eyes; threats of running away were made, and then we had breakfast.

After 3 weeks of this, Bear and AJ didn’t like it, but they accepted it as a part of life that was just “toopee [stupid]” and horrible. Q, on the other hand, was shocked, SHOCKED each morning when greeted by a fresh job list. She fought it every single day, seven days a week. The week before school started, at the end of August, she was still appalled that she had to make her bed.

Q: What? Again?!

Me: Did you sleep in it last night?

Q: Yes.

Me: Then yes, you need to make it.

Q: Fine. I’ll just sleep on the floor.

Me: Well, that’s one solution.

Now, 10 months in, she still doesn’t like it (that’d be weird,) but she doesn’t raise a personal insurrection every day.

Children should do chores as soon as they are capable. My grandmother was in charge of making the family bread at age 6. She was too small to knead it, so she used to stand on a chair and beat the dough with a rolling pin, gather it all back up with her little hands and hit it again. I’m pretty sure that if 6 year-olds can make bread and young farm kids can be expected to milk cows, gather eggs, and muck out stalls, my soft city kids can fold clean dishtowels.

It builds confidence in skills that they will need when they are grown and (god willing) no longer living in my house. We all knew 18 year-olds who couldn’t do laundry, sew a button back on, or use a knife without fear of losing fingers. At some point, they will have to do their own housekeeping. Until they do, I want them to learn to appreciate what it takes when someone else does it for them. And I want them to leave my nest with the skills required to make one of their own. Then, I’ll be changing the locks.

Chores nurture self-confidence (which is earned) and independence. Recently, Q asked if she could help make an egg casserole. Because I knew that she had enough experience in my kitchen, I gave her the recipe, reminded her to tie her hair back, and she and Bear made the batter by themselves. It was a banner moment for us all. They were proud of being trusted with a new task, and I was grateful that I had seen and taken the opportunity to let them try.

When I don’t want to hold them to their chores for their own sakes, or my own, I think of their future roommates and spouses. A grown up who doesn’t think to empty the trash when it’s overflowing and instead puts her empty chip bag on the counter is inconsiderate and kind of a pain. Yes, we can all be slobs, but we should know we are being slobs and know enough to not habitually inflict our slovenliness on others. Non-slobs, I believe those people are called “childless”, are busy enough with their own garbage and don’t need to wade through someone elses’ who can’t be bothered. My kids got so tired of me telling them, “Picking up after yourself is like wiping your butt or brushing your teeth- it’s just part of being healthy and living with other people.”

I am joyful as I watch them learn new skills, real skills that they will need everyday, or at least once a week, when they are grown. My biggest challenge is to continue expanding the chore list and giving them more and more complex and challenging work, as their skill and maturity warrant. My mom waited until my brother was 9 before making him plan and cook family dinner for a month. I can’t wait. Then I will sit on the porch, sipping a gimlet, whilst the youngest rubs my bunions.

The book, Cleaning House, reenergized my belief in chores. It is full of real ideas.

The Red Scab of Courage

Feb14

Bandages to keep your well-learned lessons from getting on the carpet.

I saw it coming: the crack in the sidewalk, the running pre-schooler pitched forward, her feet moving quickly to stay under her big ol’ head. She looked backward at me with a smile, hit the raised bit of sidewalk and toppled forward, meeting the concrete with a full body smack- hot tears, bloodied legs, stinging palms.

I knew it was coming. It was knowledge I gained long ago, a lesson reinforced multiple times when my eyes were closer to the Earth. I fell the same way she had. I fell playing basketball (and by playing, I mean dribbling the ball off my foot and chasing it down.) I skinned my elbows in centimeters and my knees in square inches. I fell off monkey bars, off walls, off of my own feet. An a-hole first grader, swinging on the swings, kicked me in the face when I strayed too close during the first week of kindergarten. (I don’t remember your pretty name, a-hole, but I remember your pigtailed sour face when you yelled at me to watch where I was going and called me stupid as I held my bleeding nose.) I got hurt like any active kid. Each scab was a lesson, a refining of my physical skill and of my knowledge of self and place.

Getting hurt is a critical part of growing up. It reveals our limitations. I cannot hang from a bar by my toes; lesson learned! It teaches us to consider consequences, and makes us better informed risk takers.

As modern, 1^st world, parents of privilege (I consider college educated people with incomes and maybe even a co-parent privileged,) we often feel like it’s our job to protect our kids from hurts. Children should listen to us when we tell them not to climb too high, not to run, not to play chicken on their bikes. They should learn from our scars to avoid collecting their own. It’s too bad this doesn’t work. Experiential discovery is the quickest and clearest way to learn. Our ever-watchful eyes and persistent badgering only result in less fun for kids and more frustration for “attentive” parents.

So I let them fall and bump and crash as much as I can bear it. Sometimes, I warn them of an impending consequence of physics. Other times, I pretend not to see and bite my tongue. And sometimes (read: often,) I truly am not paying attention when they biff it. They should wear their scabs as badges of honor, like a Tim Burton inspired slightly twisted Girl Scout. And when they leave bits of epidermis on the sidewalk, I try not to over react. I don’t run to them unless I am genuinely scared that we are on our way to the ER. No panic enters my voice. I say, “Wow, that’s a good one.” And we put a bandage on it. Yes, sometimes I even put bandages on skin that is unbroken. (I am not completely heartless.)

With each of my toddlers, I remember kissing their beautiful smooth knees in April and thinking with gratitude and a smile, “This summer will be the end of these pristine little knees.” Let the learning begin!

Preemptive Nostalgia

Feb5

Oh look, there ARE fingerprints to wash off. Oh, good.

Oh look, there are still fingerprints. Good.

We are having work done in our house. My husband, the Hot Swede, is a very handy man who also happens to be a big idea guy. Thus, we are living through a year-long, epic, complete kitchen remodel and rebuild of the back third of our house. (Yes, I welcome your prayers and sympathies.) Really, I should have blogged about it from the beginning. It’s been quite an adventure.

He has done all the work himself, but the one job he always planned to hire out was taping (This is how seams and screws in new drywall get covered up and smoothed out.) With the exception of pouring concrete, there is no home improvement/construction task that he dislikes more. It is a job that takes finesse, expertise, and lots of practice. It is a job for a professional. An amateur can do it. He will spend three times the time and as much in materials and the result will not be as clean, but he can do it. It is one of those things, like moon landings and opera singing, that is best left to the pros.

As with all remodeling projects, ours has a tendency to leak into other parts of the house. We were going to have just the new drywall taped, but then we looked at the crumbly and cracking plaster ceilings on the rest of the main floor, and the holes handy Hot Swede cut to run new electrical. We thought, “What the heck, let’s get all this dusty, disruptive mess done at once.”

In preparation, we moved all the furniture off the main floor (with the exception of the piano and big ‘ol dining table.) The walls are bare, the rug rolled up. I even picked up all the kids’ stray socks. I thought it would feel great, getting everything out and uncluttered. But it made me sad. It made both of us sad. It felt like we were moving out and leaving.

When did this old building, this monster of responsibility, upkeep, and debt, become our home? When did it become a part of me?

When Hot Swede and I scraped, patched and painted it, we claimed it. When we removed horrible wallpaper and scarlet carpet, when we sanded and refinished kitchen cabinets, we claimed it. We filled it with the smells of our meals, laundry soap, shampoo, and one ill-chosen night of indoor hot-oil fondue that made the entire house smell like McDonalds for a month.

I brought each of my children home to this house. They grow, learn, and feel safe here. We have been healthy here. Whenever they leave, they have always come back to these walls.

We grow food in the yard and chase squirrels away from the peaches with Nerf guns. Every year, we watch the peonies come up, the buds swell and then watch as a spring rainstorm beats the glorious new blossoms to the ground. Every. year. We visit with neighbors in the front, and it is not uncommon for my neighbor to hand my kids ice cream treats across the fence.

Nearly daily, I complain and am stressed by the clutter, dirt, and general material chaos in this house. There are always piles of paper to sort, fingerprints to wash off, sprinklings of sand, food and glitter to be swept off the floor, and only once- watermelon to wash off the wall.

And yet, as I sit on the radiator, looking at the empty rooms, I am wistful for the mess of my life and the clutter of the people with whom I’m spending it.
Some day, when we are done with them and have moved on, these 100 year-old rooms will be emptied for keeps, for someone else to make their life within, or to be torn down and replaced. The woman who owned the house before us moved in as a newlywed and made her life here for 65 years. Her children still drive by and look at the house with eyes for their past.

In this moment, feeling its transience, knowing its temporal nature, I am immensely grateful for my time within these walls. Tomorrow, I will rail against the dust, curse the bills, and shake a fist at the piles of laundry (which, I’m afraid, are eternal,) but in this empty space, I see my incalculable blessings. The past was good. Today was good. And I am lucky.

Table Manners

Jan29

My kids are 8,6, and 4 years old. It is an even year. They are bright, distinct, and varied in talents, often kind and sometimes not. I get compliments on what good kids they are at church, in Target, and at school. That’s great, really, really great, but these kind strangers have never sat at dinner with my three diminutive savages.

Look at the Dowager Countess’ face. She must be seated across from my children.

I don’t know how any other family operates at table, (please, leave a comment so I can either be jealous or feel solidarity in this struggle,) but the following phrases pass my lips multiple times per week/meal.

Did you wash my hands? With soap? Go wash them.

We haven’t prayed yet; please stop eating.

Put some clothes on. You can’t come to dinner without pants. (Really, I say this at least twice a week.)

Don’t drive with your dinner plate.

*Notice, we haven’t started eating yet. When I serve the food, things get ugly.

Use your fork. Use a knife (and all it’s variations.)

Fingers are for noses; spoons are for soup.

Sit down…in your chair.

Don’t lick your plate (or fingers, or the outside of your glass.)

Elbows off the table

Smacking. (This one is so frequent, it is shortened to one word and now has a sign- a “close your mouth” snapping shut of the hand.)

Don’t talk with your mouth full.

Napkin! (Usually when saucy hands are being wiped on a pink shirt.)

Ask for something to be passed; don’t reach.

Don’t interrupt.

Why? It’s just my family here. There is no one to impress. Why put everyone through this? It’s so much work, all this nagging. Does it really matter?

YES, of course it matters! And it’s not because it shows good breeding, or anything so lofty. It’s because other diners have to eat with them. I have to eat with them every day. It’s about making these children acceptable dinner companions and not onerous appetite suppressants. Maybe, at some glorious point in the future, they will even be enjoyable to eat with. This, indeed, is the essence of all good manners- making ourselves pleasant to be around.

So, I correct and remind them all the way through dinner, (God help me,) from the moment they sit, until they are excused. If I did not, dinner would look like primate feeding time at the zoo, and I do them no favors by letting them keep their course ways. Still, I wonder when I will be able to serve a meal without a big steaming dish of nag.

Work Pants Over Smarty Pants

Jan24

Don’t tell my daughter she’s smart. I’d rather you didn’t say anything at all. Please. Smart is like pretty; it is a fortunate trait and a potential tool, but the only thing that matters is what the owner does with it, and in the case of young children, they have done precious little.

When you praise Q, the eldest of our three, for being smart, you enforce an expectation that things should be easy for her and you give her praise for something for which she is not responsible. She didn’t go out and make that brain, she is only lucky that it grew between her ears.

So, Q is smart. Her mind is programmed to accept, organize, and synthesize information. She is lucky that the way she learns is exactly the way traditional schools teach. She’s starting life with a good head and she knows it. Despite the current effort in education to avoid loaded words like “advanced, accelerated, low, remedial,” etc., kids know where they sit on the academic spectrum, and so does she. School work is not hard for her, not really. Sometimes she needs something explained, or gets a math problem wrong, but most of her errors are due to carelessness and one explanation is all it usually takes.

Am I bragging? Hell no. I didn’t build that brain either. I’d love to take credit for it, but the only thing I did toward her agile mind is stay off booze and blow when it was forming. (High five for me!) I’m trying to set up the dilemma I see for this child and us, her parents.

My concern for her is that she learn to work hard, and to see hard work as part of life, a GOOD part. People grow wiser, stronger, and more mature by struggling, sweating, working around obstacles they can’t change, trying over and over, plugging away at a mountain of a task. That is how we achieve, how we conquer challenges, master ourselves, and earn our self-esteem (and there is no other way to get it but to earn it. Everything else is pap.)

Why don’t I just give her harder books? Pester her teacher until she throws an algebra book at the child? Enroll her in “enrichment” classes outside of school? Because she is already good at this kind of work. The goal is not to finish the academic standards first. The goal is to learn to work, learn to listen, learn to strive, to learn that being good at one thing does not make you good at all things. Grit is what I want for her, grit and perseverance, and a little humility to keep it all in line. We require her to do her best work at school and we search for things that will challenge her in new ways, coax her to think differently and maybe even struggle a little.

It is one reason why we make her study piano. (Aren’t we awful, terrible, monster parents?) It doesn’t matter how bright or talented you are, learning a musical instrument is a tremendous physical and mental challenge, and we want her challenged. I sought out the toughest teacher I could find- a Chinese woman in her 60s with nearly ridiculous standards for hand position, correct phrasing, and musical literacy. Q rails against it every day. I often think of tiger mother, Amy Chua, when we practice together. It is hard. It takes a lot of repetition and a fully engaged mind. It requires attention to detail. It is not easy. It is just what she needs.

I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know that it’s a real problem for her. Just please, don’t praise her for something over which she has no control. Note the effort, the quality of the work, the time spent. And if it isn’t that great, don’t say it is.

Moustache Day

Jan18

My husband calls in the late morning, “So, did you send the kids to school with moustaches?” Crap. Instantly, I feel like a failure. I had forgotten Moustache Day at school- this just-for-fun theme day that has never happened before but had to be scheduled the day before Christmas break, when there is nothing else going on. I was ashamed of, disappointed in, and disgusted with myself. The working parent remembered Moustache Day, but I didn’t. Isn’t this kind of minutia exactly why we decided I should stay at home? So that there was someone who’s JOB it was to answer all their questions, taxi them around, soothe fevers, keep us stocked with toilet paper, and draw facial hair on the second grader on December 20^th? Arghhh!

I don’t think most mothers realize how fragile their mother egos are. (I didn’t include fathers because, in my experience, dads don’t carry around the same kind of guilt that mothers pack in with extra diapers and a clean set of drawers.) It seems that self-doubt and self-flagellation come with the territory. We all look at that parent who does that one thing better than we do, and instead of congratulating her on teaching her children complete sign language, in Portuguese, or instead of simply coveting her energy/patience/clean shirt, we do to ourselves what we would never do to our own kids. We look at ourselves and say, “Why can’t I be more like her? I must be [insert favorite pejorative descriptor: lazy, disorganized, not that smart, impatient, selfish, etc.]”

Well, I’m all of those things, and most days, I accept it. I also don’t have the mind of Carl Sagan or the bone structure of Gisele Bündchen, and that’s okay. Most days, I live comfortably with most of my shortcomings. My family is getting what they need from me. I’m doing okay. And then it happens- the little wisp of a breeze that topples the tissue house that ego built- Moustache Day.

I hung up the phone. The dust settled, and the wise part of my soul (she is very small) spoke up in her tired voice, “Get a grip. You got your kids to school on time, fed, with all their snow gear. They practiced their piano and got homework done. They went to bed at a decent hour. They are fine. You are fine. You covered the big stuff. Luckily, most kids forgive their parents’ mistakes, even the big ones. Lay off yourself and go make us some coffee.” And with that, my wispy mother ego was righted and there it will stand… until I forget snack day.

Sometimes I Sleep

other times, I pretend

Category Archives: Growing People