the truth will out

Frances: Will we ever have any more kids in our family?

Meagan: I don't know. Would you like it if we had another baby?

F: (looks down, thinks a bit, smiles) ...yes.

We sit at the table quietly for a moment. Frances stares into her bowl of oatmeal and I stare into my coffee, letting this possibility gently fill the space around us. Suddenly, she looks at me and oh-so-earnestly asks: How do you get a baby, anyway? Do you just want one? A lot? And then nine months later you get it?

Oh my. We have books that describe the sperm and egg cells meeting and dividing, and in the past that was sufficient explanation. But when I remind her now of the whole cellular business, Frances finds it wholly unsatisfying.

F: But Mama. How does the sperm cell get to the egg cell inside the mama's body?

M: Oh. Well. When two people love each other very much, and get married, and decide they want to have a baby together...

F: What? What do they do?

M: They hug and love each other in a special, important way, and the sperm from the papa's body actually goes inside the mama's body, and then if the cells get together just right, a baby starts to grow.

Silence descends. I am feeling insane at this moment. It is like treading water in the middle of the ocean; none of my extremeties have any hope of even grazing solid land. I immediately think back over what I have said and regret, regret, regret. Will she think hugging boys will result in pregnancy, like some lost Victorian girl whose mother never told it like it was? Will she watch her parents for hugs that seem particularly special and start preparing for a new sibling?

Thankfully Frances took the conversation into other arenas, such as where one finds a husband (college is a good place, Mama), how old a person should be when they get married (probably 27 or 28), and how in the world you know how to take care of a newborn baby when you become a mama (I didn't tell her that you don't). The whole exchange was oddly exhilarating. I felt the urge to shout and laugh at inappropriate moments; I wanted to squeeze her way too tight. All I could do was grip my coffee mug and focus my energies on maintaining an I'm-taking-you-very-seriously sort of expression on my face, so as not to break the spell.
 
That was all yesterday morning. Later we went to an Elizabeth Mitchell concert - in downtown Annapolis, of all places! Those of you who have been reading me for some time know how much I love her family band's big-hearted, deep-souled music. We sat with some dear friends and fellow fans; it was just lovely. Again, I fought the urge to squeeze Frances the whole time. This was our music!! But like the concert we saw more than a year ago, she was intent upon having her own experience. Sitting a bit apart from me, resisting eye contact, Frances was staunch in her unwillingness to let me define this concert. Watching her from across the table, she seemed so impossibly grown up. (Gabriel, happily, was sleepy and didn't mind sitting on my lap as I swayed and sang along into his ear).

That evening at dinner, Frances wanted to talk Santa. The weirdly thrilling and disorienting feeling of being in parenting freefall came rushing right back as I watched her quiz Mike on whether or not that guy at Whole Foods was really Santa, what about the St. Nicholas who lived such a long time ago, and do you and Mama ever put toys in the stockings?

To Mike's credit, he answered kindly, with lots of open answers, partial truths, and more questions for her to ponder. It seems best to open these doors gradually, letting just a crack of light in at first.

But really. Sex and Santa, all in one day! Being five is no joke.  

a smashing spirit

Not too long ago, I asked Frances what she thinks she'll like to do for fun when she's older. Probably the things I like to do now, she said. Read books, make pictures, write, listen to music. Stuff like that.

Her prescience caught me off guard. It helped me to see the continuity of my own inclinations throughout my life, and so I have little doubt that Frances will love books and art and music as an adult. But what about Gabriel? The things he likes now are zooming trucks and trains around, doing outrageously expressive superhero dances while singing impromptu superhero anthems, throwing and kicking balls, and fantasizing about destruction of all sorts.

To be fair, he also loves to draw. Machinery and trucks and balls, mostly.

Let me tell you a little more about the superhero song and dance numbers. His acquaintance with superheros is shockingly slight, considering how deeply they have moved into his soul. When he gets in the Superhero Zone, Gabriel bends his knees deeply and plants his feet wide apart. His voice descends two octaves. Think stability; think power center. Gabriel taps into a way of moving that I found completely counter-intuitive in my college African dancing days. We former ballet types would be crossing the floor, tugged upward by an invisible thread connecting our sternums to the sky, while the teacher would shout GET. DOWN. LOW. Lower! It was something I had to learn, bending my knees deeply and moving my weight down into my hips. But Gabriel, at two? The boy gets down low.

Channeling Spiderman today, Gabriel punched the air and ran and kicked and twirled. In the midst of this toddler capoeira routine he was breathlessly singing/shouting: Spiderman! Does whatever he can! SPIDERMAN! Yeah yeah Spiderman! Usually during this song there are some repetitive boom boom boom bash phrases thrown in as well as evocative details about Spiderman's violent pasttimes. Today he sang convincingly about how Spiderman "smashes and cuts people."

Woah! Really? Like, with a knife? I was taken aback for a moment, but the truth is I feel pure awed delight when I watch Gabriel embody his superhero side, even when cutting and smashing are involved. He glows with energy and happiness, asserting himself completely in his imaginary world (which blends so readily with reality for him).  How remote from my own experience! I can only stand back and grin. 

But what will happen to this creative love of power? I know that when he is in a classroom with ten other kids who also like to play with sticks, chances are slim that he will have a teacher who can simultaneously embrace the superhero and maintain order. That said, my inner mama tigress starts to stir and rage at the very thought of somebody crushing his outrageous testostorone-fueled enthusiasm for the world.

I wonder what he will do for fun when he's older. I wonder how boys grow up to become men who can still feel and cherish that essential love of power and motion within themselves. There must be some expression of this possible beyond sports fandom!

Ah, but wait. My dad read comic books until his dying day. He loved to run off the trail and holler as he heaved dead trees down to the forest floor, told dirty jokes with gusto, and would wrestle on the rug with any dog or kid who walked in the front door. The man liked to knock things over. Just like Gabriel. Maybe that's why I sometimes feel a joy so big it almost hurts as I watch my little boy enact noisy dinosaur battles at the kitchen table.

So I guess I know from experience that superheros can find a place for themselves, even in our techonological world. There are still towers to crash. Even so, as I anticipate kid institutions that don't always sit easy with robust physicality and boundless, assertive imaginary play, I feel a little protective of my boy. Hello? Future teachers and coaches and Sunday School leaders out there? Are you listening? Beware the tigress. 

betty, hope, and me

A confession: for someone who doesn't own a television, I manage to watch a lot of television. Last night we watched Madmen, and not too long ago I watched the pilot episode of thirtysomething with my mom. Both these shows, I suspect, have been the subject of many a cultural studies-type dissertation and plenty of sophisticated media analysis. I have nothing particularly interesting to add to those fancy conversations, but I would like to figure out why Betty Draper and Hope Steadman get me all stirred up.

A dear friend told me (in the comments section here) that one reason she and her husband had delayed having children was that other couples they knew who were dedicated to equality in their marriages seemed to throw their convictions out the window as soon as they had a baby. Well, yeah. It's a problem. It was less of a problem when I worked full time and Mike was home taking care of Frances, but that situation was difficult in other ways. I struggled with envy and sadness, and felt compelled to do everything when I came home. It wore me out. But then I got my turn staying at home, and guess what? That wore me out too.

It is a conundrum. When I was offered a great 32 hour/week job shortly before Gabriel's 2nd birthday, I said no. Even though I had applied for it, even though I was going nuts missing work, something told me I would be nuttier still if I worked four full days a week. I imagined that life, rushing and dropping off and scrambling to get dinner ready. I thought of all the spontaneous beautiful things that require stretches of quiet, open time together that would never happen and knew with sadness that I could not take that job.

When I watched thirtysomething, I wondered if a single thing had changed for mothers since the eighties. Hope was my mother's age when the show first aired; funny, because she's my age now. In the pilot episode, Hope's new role as mother is alienating her from her friends, colleagues, and spouse. Everyone gets less of her now, and they're sort of annoyed about it. She also misses work and friends and easy intimacy with her husband. Plus being home puts her right in the resentful homemaker shoes I am loathe to slip on - and yet have, do, and will. She is sacrificing a lot, and she knows it. Yet she can't bring herself to go back to work.

Without the distancing power of shoulder pads and bad perms, thirtysomething would be too excruciating close. It left me feeling vaguely glum: this mother problem just might be unsolvable. The onward and upward course of feminism suggests that we are supposed to be marching with our ERA signs towards an ever more equal future, but I don't know that much has really changed since 1987. Better birth control pills, maybe? Less sexual harrassment in the work place, perhaps. But have we made any progress towards creating conditions that support more equitable, sustainable roles for men and women in families?

You could say the problem is just that some ambitious, educated women want to be with their kids - unlike men - and so they have to deal with the consequences of that. Except in Madmen, privileged Betty Draper has no desire to take care of her kids. Neither do any of her friends seem interested in spending time with their children. It's not a part of their culture. Educated women of means weren't expected to want to get down on the rug or make crafts at the kitchen table. (This also suggests that a culture that reinforces a male lack of interest in caring for children has perhaps more to do with the dearth of stay-at-home dads than some essential masculine temperament).

Did you ever read Crossing to Safety? As in so many other stories from that era, the women don't work, but they keep busy fulfilling social and community obligations, leaving their young children behind while they do. They remain essentially aligned with their husbands, and the children belong to another world ruled by ruddy-cheeked working class girls and maiden aunts. The vision of marriage, family, and community life in that book was powerfully attractive. Alas, we have no family compound in Vermont, nor the resources to hire a "girl." But the bizarre truth is I am too attached to spending time with Frances and Gabriel to make it work anyway.

So Betty Draper was not interested in parenting. Neither were her parents, who hired help to do the work of caring for their children. Betty and Don's daughter Sally (whom you can easily imagine building bombs in some basement for the Weather Underground in a few years) is the first one who is going to at least consider whether or not she wants to take care of her own kids.

Isn't it interesting to think the second-wavers were the first to feel these conflicting desires? (I'm just talking about an elite, educated bit of the population, I know - forgive me for the purposes of this thought experiment). We think of our feminist mothers as making the desire for meaningful work outside the home possible. Did they make the desire for intimacy and time with our children possible too? Did the feminism of the sixties and seventies result in an awareness of ourselves as subjects - agents in the world - with all kinds of desires? And was the kind of involved parenting that baby boomers trailblazed (and for this author, modeled) a reaction to second wave feminism, or a natural continuation of it?

Enough of me. Readers, weigh in!

friday stillness

I went for a walk this afternoon. I passed this defiant December rose, bending and shaking in the cold wind, still smooth-petaled amongst her wrinkled and graying sisters.

A brilliant fushcia rose, waving to get my attention on such a wintry day. She was not asking me to smell her so much as marvel at her. To open a door wide, and let her in.

Lately I seem to be tripping over myself as I run through the to-do list in my mind. Surely I have been missing out on countless other things of beauty calling out my name as I rush past. The coming weeks seem overstuffed with packages to send, gifts to prepare, birthdays to remember, travel plans to make. However will I do it all? Regular life maintenance kind of hovers near the too-much line for me. Add some preparations for fun and holiday cheer and the precarious balance begins to tip.

So today, I'm trying to slow down my forward rush into the problem-laden future. I'm trying to let the soft petals of Advent touch my face, because Advent involves a different sort of preparation. It's about waiting for God with one's whole heart, which makes the world around me - December roses included - new and strange. Intentional anticipation clears a space for the present moment. There is nothing burdensome about this emotional gesture, though it is so hard to make.

But we have our little calendar to remind me of the gift of each and every regular, messy day. And when I can find moments like this afternoon, I realize that this season that can so easily give way to anxiety is at its heart a gentle time of year. The sky is soft gray and purple. At times I feel a quiet openness as we move into winter, like the birds’ nests that are exposed now that the leaves have all fallen. There is a stillness in the season, a hush in the air that whispers: don’t be scared. Just wait.