Little Holes, Big Ideas

Any mother worth her salt has at least a couple catchphrases, most of them cautionary, or at least concerned. My own mom's include "watch out for black ice!" (while driving in winter) "do you have enough light?" (while reading) and my brother Brad's favorite, "chocolate is liquid at 85 degrees!" Which, of course, is 13.6 degrees lower than body temperature, so that translates to "don't come anywhere near my upholstery."

But my mother also has signature phrases that don't have anything to do with keeping her children in line, or to do with her children at all—at least not directly. For example: "My mind is like a sieve!" It pops out when she's frustrated by some elusive piece of information or misplaced item. I didn't really get it, however, until I had Drew. Your first baby: sleeplessness, stress, the all-consuming nature of this new challenge, the still trying to have a semblance of a life beyond. Your brain as you knew it erodes—or explodes—but either way its contours are never the same. Things pour in; things pour out.

So when Mary called to ask me if I wanted to start blogging with her as a means of talking across the miles about being a parent and loving and raising our children, and perhaps capturing some things from the media that feel interesting and true (or dangerous and false!) and looking at them more closely, all I could think of was "my mind is like a sieve!"

But what if having a few holes in your brain is not all bad? After all, a sieve is meant to catch the good stuff, and let the dreck run through. And wow is there a lot of parenting dreck out there. We're all bombarded by information and noise these days, about everything under the sun, but parenting is an especially noisy quarter. And, I have come to believe, an especially dangerous place in which to let anything in the headlines drown out that little voice in your head.

Still, we all need a good think now and again, spurred by a good poke to the gray matter. The human race did not evolve by staring at the walls of the cave. And we are raising little humans, after all, and owe them the example, and the fruit, of enlightened dialogue. (And I imagine—and hope—we'll also discuss a few things not related to raising children. As hard as it can be to think or talk about anything other than our kids, parents need to be whole people, too!)

So, my first offering. It's the short story Mary mentioned in her intro post: "The Erlking," by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, from the July 5 issue of The New Yorker. Have a read, and I'll kick off the discussion in my next post.