Princess and the Pea

Mom's Dilemma

It’s been said that working moms suffer anxiety and stay-at-home moms suffer depression.  I heard that from another psychologist at a lecture on stress management and I’m not sure where she found the data, but it makes sense.  She’s was being funny, I think, and it made me laugh at the time.  It’s not greener on either side of the fence.

Now I’m on a train back from a two day trip and I’m not sure if, as a working mom, I feel anxious or depressed or both.  I spent my time with hard working women – who are not mothers – and I found myself in the situation feeling awkward even  mentioning  my children or requesting  some lead time for business travel so I could make plans on the home front.  How did my mother, divorced and single, ever manage it?

My mother made her way selling Avon door to door. By the time she was working in the corporate offices in New York City I was about 10 years old.  She’d wake us before she’d head out to the commuter rail and when I was older I would warm up her car for the drive to the train station. 

She was very organized.  Part of our daily chores was to set the breakfast table the night before – and she’d pack our lunches, too.  (Bagels from Zaro’s at Grand Central Station). She’d often pull out frozen meals to defrost and have my sister or I preheat them before she got home in the evening.  For her it was a 12 or 13 hour day.  Anxious? Well, yes. And it manifested in a persistent need to control anything she could.  When the Post-It notes became a prevalent office item, she’d have these 2x2 inch notes stuck to the door jams at eye level (the only color at the time was yellow).  The lemon notes read:

“Take your shoes off.”
“Turn off heat.”
“Do not have heat above 68F.”
“Remember to turn off stove.”
“Keep basement door shut.”
“Take your vitamins.”

My sister’s best friend simply loved coming into the house after school and going from room to room reading all the notes out loud in an exaggerated German accent. “Dahrrrlings, do naut haff heat ah-boff zixty-ate degrheez!”

We didn’t mean to make fun of her.  In fact, we got away with an awful lot being unsupervised for those few hours after school.  The least we could do was follow the post-its as a means for the least possible conflict.  And there was conflict.  So tired would she be after a long day that we have to be utterly quiet, could not stay on the phone gabbing with friends, and lights were always out early.  My sister and I became very fluent with the creaks of the floor boards and which steps to skip when we got older.  We pretended to go to bed, wait until a safe hour when our exhausted mother was asleep, and sneak out of the house.  We didn’t do this together, as we had quite different circle of friends – hers more edgier.  And somehow my sister got caught in more shenanigans than I, until she was sent to boarding school for a few years.  Sometimes we’d cover for one another, not out of loyalty, but as an unconscious need to build up some equity… I’ll cover your ass if you cover mine.  It didn’t always work out that way.  And we weren’t all that friendly to one another given tumultuous childhood circumstances blended with teenage angst.  The culture of control overshadowed the desire for connection. Our need to be heard, nurtured, and accepted came from outside of the home.  And when I look back, that was the saddest consequence of all.

First Snowboard

There’s a little ski hill in the neighborhood.  The rains washed much of the snow from earlier in the winter and we feared that winter recess camp might be more like a mud fest.  It’s the little hill that could because, low and behold—in spite of the patchy slopes— it is teaming with overdressed children and underdressed teens with their snowboards or skis. Adele had worn me down over the past few months, begging me to let her take snowboard lessons. She’s petite for her age and can be easily missed or hit, depending on how in control those teen boarders are with all that ginseng Pepsi. I’ve been skiing on that hill with my daughters, more or less, on snowboarder alert.  But she’s a mighty fine one not to let such requests lay to rest (it’s up there with getting her ears pierced; and I’m sticking to the age 12 milestone.) She intuitively knows snowboarding is the cool kids’ winter sport and is keen on the baggy, low riding snow pants and hip hop caps.  What’s more—she knows she can master the sport.

It only took her 4 hours.  At the end of the first day of camp, I see my purple puff of a kid surfing on the bunny hill.  She didn’t see me watch her and just as well.  She scooted past me onto the “Magic Carpet” and up she was pulled, with some other kids on skis behind her. (What happened to the good old rope tows and T-bars?)

“S_T_O_P   N _O_W” Adele was spelling at the top of her lungs to a girl in pink named Isabelle, who was scooching her skis up close behind.  I bet she doesn’t want to fall at the top and have a pair of skis up her butt, I thought.  Smart kid, but she could less of a bully about it.  And then down she sailed—with one topple, but right back up.  I gave her the thumbs up.

I knew she was proud because she ignored me—and I caught a smile on her face.  “I want to go to Big Blue!”  She exclaimed.  What did your instructor say?  “That I had to stay here.”  Well, Okay then.

She’s gonna push the envelope and I bet by the end of the week she’ll be up on the big hill. In a recent post I worried about my kids’ lack of grit in the scheme of their relatively privileged life (how many kids have a dumpy ski hill practically in their backyard?).  But Adele has gumption.  When she sets her mind to something and it’s worth the fight, she’ll do it.

And the exasperating thing is —I was just like her.

The Paradox of Privilege

It’s been on my mind a lot lately.  That my children know little hardship other than their own rivalry and that I won’t let them get their ears pierced until they are 12.

By the time I was 7, Adele’s age, my parents were in the throes of a vicious, dish flinging divorce and I feared for my mother’s safety.  By the time I was 10, the age of Rosie, we were living from one apartment to another trying to make ends meet.  Child support was rare.

It sort of built up grit in me.

This has come up now because I did one of those crazy once-every-five-year things.  I had a tarot card reading.  It was all well and good. Harmless really.  I asked about everyone in my family.  When I asked about Adele and her temperament the psychic simply asked, “Has anything changed in her sleep lately?” 

Why yes.  In fact she and her sister no longer share a room and the guest room is now Adele’s very own.

“How is the energy in the room?  Does she sleep with a toy?” 

Why yes.  In fact, she has taken to my childhood worn stuffed leopard,  Rango, that I picked out of the FAO Schwarz catalog in 1970 as the only thing I wanted from Santa. (I could only ask for one thing.)

“And what is the vibe (or something along those lines) of the stuffed animal?’

A heavy sigh.

Good god, it’s terrible! Sad. Angry. He soaked up all my childhood tears!

The Aha moment.

The next weekend I took Adele to the esoteric shop where I had the psychic reading and she picked out cool stuff for her room – under the pretense, mind you, that she could sparkle up her room. 

What did she pick?  A dream catcher; a glow in the dark gargoyle; and a fairy dust necklace.

She was happy – and had no idea of my ulterior motive.

Rango is still her nighttime companion, along with a dog named Scruffy, who likely balances things out.  But I look at Adele in her sweet slumber and think she has no idea of what struggle is.  Would she have a survival instinct?  Would she be resilient in that face of hardship? Or would she fall to pieces because things weren’t working out her way. 

I reflect on this for Adele and her little middle class friends, too. They blissfully play, fight and make-up.  So my next parenting cause… teach my girls about social action.  Forget the annual holiday gift drive (in which parents pay for the toys anyway) or the cereal Box Top challenge at school to raise money for supplies when they are getting by just fine.  Let’s raise money for other little seven-year olds who don’t even have a pencil.  Make connection in the hearts and minds of these kids. It’s a start.

Supper Tuesday

At dinner last night, Adele announced: “I’m voting for…um, what’s his name again?” 

“Obama?”  I asked.

“Yah, him.”

“Why?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged.

“Because your friends talk about him, probably. Because their moms and dad like him.”

“You who voting for, Mama?” she asked, chomping on carrots and sounding like some Southern belle.

“The only woman on the ticket.  Hillary.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Clinton.”

“And she’d be the first woman president?” She seemed awed at the idea.

“Yes,” I remarked.

“ Wow.  I’d wanna be that,” she declared.

“Well, that’d be great because it may take that long for Americans to vote for an experienced, competent and capable woman.”

“Woah.”

Yeah, I thought. Let’s see Adele is seven -- in about 40 years she could run for office.  Why not?

Her father chimed in a few minutes later.  “I was on the radio yesterday.”

“Oh? O’Reilly again?” I asked but not as interested as he would have liked.  (He tolerates talk radio because, he claims, we have to know how the other side thinks no matter how distasteful.)

“No some other program, I’m not sure what.  I told them Hillary can’t win because she’s not likable.”

“Oh?” I asked slightly more interested.

“They wanted examples.”

“Hmm.”

“But I didn’t want to give in to their agenda.”

Adele chimed in, “I’m not hungry.”

Me neither, I thought. 

But Hillary won in Massachusetts.

Juno: A paradoxical role model

My girls aren’t old enough to see Juno, the movie about the pregnant teenager. It’s the kind of movie I’d want to see with my daughters someday. It’s a quirky pro-choice movie (as opposed to anti-abortion) and it’s a good conversation piece. The movie sweeps over big topics like sex and consequences, infertility and adoption, parenting and motherhood -- and yes, reproductive choice.

My girls wouldn’t be able to keep up with the wise-ass hyperspeak in the movie, at least by the females. And they’d squirm at the kissing (not that there is much of it or anything else explicit).

I left the theater both smiling and crying. (Not anything new for me.) One of the aspects I liked best was the parents’ acceptance of Juno’s poor judgment and of her resolve. The other was Juno’s fierce independence about her sexuality and desire (that got her in a pickle) yet also allowed her to see a way out in which secrecy and shame was not the primary experience. And it this way Juno is a post-modern feminist. As her step-mom said: A Viking girl.