"I'm Telling You Your Life"

The title of this post is a quote from the movie Moonstruck. It's from the scene where Loretta (Cher) is telling Ronny (Nic Cage) the truth about himself, that he's "a wolf! A wolf who is willing to chew off his own foot to save himself from the trap of the wrong love!" And he doesn't want to hear it but then he heaves over the kitchen table and the spaghetti and steak and whiskey fly everywhere and they go to bed.

"The Erlking" has nothing at all to do with any of this except that while I was reading it I felt overwhelmingly like Ronny to the author's Loretta: Bynum was painting quite clearly the picture I couldn't quite see on my own, because I'm living inside it.

I guess that's what's so great about fiction: unburdened by a responsibility to "facts," it's free to be true on a much higher level.

I think this story gets right to the heart of the anxiety we feel about the decisions we make on behalf of our kids, and about our kids themselves. Preschool admissions! Bedtimes! Weissbluth! (Did anyone else want to throw that P.O.S. out the window? I found it especially infuriating because I know he's onto something, but I found the text incomprehensible, especially when I was incredibly sleep-deprived myself.)

There's an undercurrent of anxiety that we might be screwing them up at every turn. And, while their little personalities are still emerging, that there might be something inherently wrong with them. How can you not worry, with autism statistics as grim as they are, and so many wee ones in one kind of therapy or another, or even on meds?

And so you turn to the light: "Tonight she'll do a little research on the Internet."

Particularly re: preschool, which is perhaps the first big philosophical choice, or maybe just the first deliberate, public choice, since you've already made or slid into decisions about eating, sleeping, discipline, and TV-watching, not to mention whether and how much you work, and what you do for childcare. But this choice pulls everything together, and feels like an inflection point.

Bynum skewers the whole process, of preschool admissions and modern parenting in general, but does so respectfully, poignantly. And the gut bomb, of course, is that we should be worried, because we ARE at risk of failing...failing to connect, in some essential way, because we're so worried, distracted, busy, rushing, tugging our kids along by the hand.

It's often very difficult for me to slow down to the speed of childhood. (Which may also be the natural speed for humans of any age.) And, as I mentioned in my first post, to trust my instincts, like Kate and Ruthie "falling asleep side by side...in defiance of Dr. Weissbluth's guidelines." They do it because it feels good, feels right to them, and restores them to a "feeling of not knowing who is leading, whether it's the grownup or the child." (I think that's a pretty perfect way to describe what raising a child can feel like, or maybe the way raising a child ought to be.)

Looking at "The Erlking" as a piece of writing, I love the double helix structure, which works for the storytelling as well as the truth-telling. Kate and Ruthie are together in body but having completely separate experiences.

(Again, this just feels so true to life. For example, when Ruthie is verging on a tantrum. From Kate's perspective, it came out of nowhere. How many times has that happened to all of us? How unknowable is the mind of a child? Or any mind other than our own, for that matter?)

There's other apt cultural criticism here, like Ruthie's manipulation re: the wooden giraffe, so skillfully played, learned so young, so irresistible to all of us, our consumer culture. Kate goes through the same loop later, with the daydream about the Ikea shelf. We are all one Ikea shelf away from being perfect parents.

I'm also really interested in Bynum's use of a Waldorf school as the setting for this story. I'd love to hear others' firsthand experiences with Waldorf. My own investigation into it included a query on a listserv here in Brooklyn that produced some vague, strange responses; an open house, which was dreamy, and made me very much want to try at least their parent/child program; then finally a "winter fair," which was a little overwhelming for Drew, and too crunchy by half for Jonathan. He came out strongly anti-Waldorf then and there, and I had enough reservations of my own that I didn't feel it was something worth going to the mat over.

I did, however, have a lady I found on Etsy make Drew a Waldorf doll in his likeness for his second birthday, and while it's darling, it's a re-do, because the first one she made wasn't just from a "dear, blunt-nosed family," it literally had no nose whatsoever. I guess it had an imaginary nose. But while Drew has a good imagination, he also has strong noses on both sides of his family (gentile and Jewish), and I just didn't think a noseless Drew doll sent the right message. (Kate's heartbreaking search for a brown doll!)

OK I've gone on much too long already and haven't even gotten into the poetic and fairy-tale roots of this story, which are fascinating, or talked at all about how fear might be an important formative force in childhood, like the way Bynum describes Ruthie loving to be tickled (by the way, did anyone see that study where kids whose parents roughhouse with them wind up more popular? will post the link if I can find it), or mentioned that there's a Q&A with the author on newyorker.com. But I'll stop. Did you like it? What struck you? Does any of it feel like it's telling you your life?

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.

Welcome to The Sieve

A few weeks ago, Kelly sent me a powerful piece of short fiction that ran in a recent issue of The New Yorker. She wanted to know my thoughts on it, I wanted to know hers.

We got to talking about how there's a lot of content about parenting out there--not all good, unfortunately--and I found myself wishing (again) that I belonged to some sort of magazine-article version of a book club. Sure, a weekly in-person event with wine and hors d'oeuvres would be ideal, but many of my most favorite people are scattered across time zones, so we decided to start a blog instead.

Kelly coined the name "The Sieve" (read on to hear about her inspiration, and for more on that New Yorker piece) and here we are. Our goal is simple: Discuss compelling articles, books, blog posts, etc., about the issues facing parents today. We hope you'll join in.