I tag YOU
May 15, 2008 Parenting
Kateri got tagged to list three things she does well as a mom. No hemming and hawing, no excuses or defensive explanations. I tag myself and I tag any of y’all who want to play, too:
1. I listen to my kids and I take them seriously. I’m interested in what they have to say even when it’s hard to hear.
2. I don’t try to talk them out of their feelings. Being someone enamored with my own feelings and anxious to share every little one with long-suffering Brett, I figure my kids have a right to theirs.
3. And I talk to ‘em. Noah and I watched our favorite songs on Rent last night (Tivo, who knows my every want and wish, recorded it off F/X) and talked about why the kids — most of ‘em — are choosing to be poor and why the homeless people were mad at Mark and why everyone gave Angel a standing ovation in the stage version I saw and the kinds of exciting/scary/interesting choices Noah will face as he gets older — see more below. I talk to my kids before they ask the way I wanted grown-ups to talk to me. And then — I take them seriously and I don’t try to talk them out of their feelings when they talk back.
I do a lot (oh lord, a lot) of things wrong but those are three things I know I do right. (And I’m hoping those three things give them the strength of mind to recognize that the wrong stuff is about ME and not about THEM and that they will have the fortitude to tell me because they will trust that I will listen.)
More on what Noah and I discussed: Specifically we talked about how most of the characters — Mimi being an exception and maybe Angel because I don’t remember Angel’s past coming up as a topic — have educations and job skills that they’re choosing not to use because they want to live authentically and creatively. And we talked about what that means and how part of growing up is finding the balance of living authentically/creatively and responsibly and that the right answer is different for everyone. Certainly this is a something we live with day-to-day in this family with our wacky writing and freelancing and homeschooling and thrift shopping.
And we talked about the homeless woman who confronts Mark for filming her and then hits him up for a dollar and who likely feels frustrated by Mark’s good intentions that do nothing to impact her immediate life.
And how Angel is someone who loves herself although she is outside of cultural gender norms and how she celebrates who she is and how much this meant to people in the audience who have struggled to love who they are and also how she brings everyone together in the show and can of course how she can play a mean pickle tub.
And we talked about how Noah is on the edge of adolescence and how his interest in friends more than family is appropriate and something that Brett and I enjoy seeing in him. And how we might struggle — even argue — as he explores what his own values will be and that trying on values that don’t reflect the family’s is part of growing up so that even when we fight we both need to remember that we love and trust each other and most of all that he knows that WE know that he is meant to find his own way so we won’t see his choices as disloyalty (Lord grant me the serenity to accept this especially if he becomes a Jew for Jesus or something equally insane and difficult).
It was a good discussion and I sent him off to bed feeling cozy and loved and secure in himself. That’s what inspired the three “what I do right” things above.
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Tags: Broadway, creative, homeschool, Homeschooling, musicals, Noah, Parenting, Rent, showtunes
This is for David
Mar 2, 2008 mp3
Because I want to make sure he’s good and hooked on showtunes.
This is from the revival of Sondheim’s very first musical, Saturday Night. It’s the title song and my favorite part happens at 3:04. I like this a lot because it’s such a simple, classic showtunes song and the guys have these great, smooth voices and they’re simply singing beautifully instead of indulging in vocal acrobatics. And I have crushes on all of ‘em. (I have no idea what they look like but they sure sound pretty!)
Here you go: Saturday Night
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Damn that Paige!
Jul 9, 2006 Mix Tape
Damn her and her interesting, soul-searching topics that keep a girl out past midnight and make her groggy eyed the next day! No, I’m just kidding. I loved being out after midnight sitting in a mosquito-filled field gabbing with her. It was pretty great. And she can cook! Someone ought to marry that girl! (Oh wait, someone did — lucky dog.) I would sit in a mosquito-infested field with Paige any old time she asked. And play Bey Blades with her son. THAT, my friends, is how much I like her!
In Mix Tape news, we start out with Mr. Feinstein himself first thing. Last night I decided he was “spectrum-y” (someone on the autism spectrum) and Paige said could be. (She knows about these things but wants everyone — including Mr. Feinstein’s legal reps — to know that she of course has not met Mr. Feinstein and was mostly just agreeing with me so I would shut up and let her listen to the music.) But think about it: Musical genius, very single-minded in his pursuits, and sometimes has something of a wooden delivery even when he’s belting out Alexander’s Rag-time Band. I’m just sayin’. Read the rest of this entry »
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Class and Friendship
May 20, 2005 Feminism/Politics, Friends
I was reading this entry at Pendagon on class and marriage, which made me think about how class differences impact my friendships.
This is tough because I’m loathe to try and shove any of my friends into class slots since I don’t know how they would label themselves. Mostly I’m going to try to talk about money and expectations and how these can play out in friendships.
As one of my friends says, “It sucks that money matters in a friendship, but it does.”
It does in obvious practical ways, like when a friend says, “Hey, you want to go grab lunch with the kids after we leave here?” And you have to say no because it’s the end of the pay period and the bills are due. This can be awkward and if too much of that happens and the asking friend remains oblivious, it can get in the way of things.
But money matters in more subtle, conversation-stopping ways. Like there are assumptions that people can make that can be divisive.
I remember one time where a group of us were talking about how to make ends meet. (Again, to set the picture, most of us are from middle to upper-middle class families and are now middle-class women who have given up an income to be home so we’re struggling but we’re struggling, I think, in part because we have expectations. Like we all own our own homes but sometimes we’re bitching because our homes aren’t in the neighborhoods like the ones we grew up in, basically.
And we were discussing who, in our marriages, handled the money and how it was divided, etc. The one friend said her husband handled the money but they discussed the big things like buying investment property and managing trusts so she had a hand in that, too.
It was very awkward.
I mean, we went from saying, “Yeah, I hate it when he eats lunch out and forgets to record it in the check book because then I can’t fill the car up at the end of the month” and even at least one “And then he never paid the phone bill so we lost service for a week while that got straightened out” and this one stand-out was talking about investment properties. Kinda stopped the conversation and I wasn’t sure whether to feel bad for her — for stepping in it, shall we say — or bad for the rest of us for not owning vacation homes on the beach.
The bigger things for me is that I feel — as many people feel — like I’m faking it sometimes. Or passing when I shouldn’t. I still don’t know where I fit in although I don’t know if it’s really that important to figure out. I certainly don’t think on it except when I come across blog posts and things. But you know that post below about sometimes not wanting to confront assumptions?
When Noah was going to preschool, we went to one in a high-priced neighborhood. The preschool was this great play-based, low-key place affiliated (loosely) with a very, very liberal church. It was, I think, about $800 a year and we got a lot of financial aid so it was about $200 and the first year, my mom paid for it. (The second year, I paid for it out of writing money.) I was driving an ‘83 Monte Carlo we got for four hundred bucks from friends and I would park in the middle of all of these shiny SUVs with leather seats.
The other moms were wonderfully nice and friendly but I could see them trying to figure us out. We were renting, hmmmm. Wrinkled-brows. And the car. Well, more than once another mom would stop and stare, surprised, as we pulled away. But the worst were playdates where I would drop Noah off at these three story, 1/2 block, stone mansions with additions because 5-bedrooms just weren’t enough for a family of four and I was always too ashamed to invite them to our run-down 2-bedroom townhouse with the broken window air conditioner.
So this led me to decide that while their assumptions were not quite ok (”Are you renting, then, while you build a house?” said with a puzzled but friendly air) and some of them were downright rude (”Why on earth would you buy a house in that school district?” asked one mom when she heard me giving the teachers our new address), that I didn’t have to internalize them. And — bigger — I didn’t have to assume the worst when someone thought I had more than I had or had experiences similar to their experiences.
I haven’t gone to Europe. I didn’t go to a good college. I am mired in student loan debt that terrifies me in the deep dark night. The kids have college funds that might buy them books for a quarter or two.
But see, we’re mostly ok and I think that money is a necessary thing and enough is a blessing and more than enough is a lot of good fun so I don’t feel bad unless I let myself feel bad.
(Yesterday a friend told me that they have enough money put aside for the kids that each will be able to get several graduate degrees from good schools should they want to and I had a blinding moment of envy and fear but then it passed.)
Sometimes I think, “Why is she telling me this? Doesn’t she have any idea what my bank account looks like?” No, of course she doesn’t besides which we all make assumptions. Like I assume everyone loves chocolate and showtunes, right? But not everybody does. (Shocking, I know, but heck more Godiva for the rest of us! And there’s no accounting for musical taste.)
I think that the money differences among us will become more divisive as the kids get bigger. As some children end up traveling and others stay home, as people jet out for better schools and hobbies get more expensive. Especially as the disparity in our college funds becomes apparent. I feel sad about that but it’s the way things go.
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If you don’t have anything nice to say
Jan 3, 2005 Family
Maybe it’s post holiday blues but I can’t get into a decent mood to save my life. I’m wandering around, shuffling my feet and sighing heavily and wishing something wonderful would happen and then something wonderful does happen and I heave another sigh and talk about what a nuisance it all is. See, Brett — knowing I’m not feeling my best or my brightest — surprised me with tickets to the touring production of The Producers for Wednesday night. I should be thrilled, right? Only I’m not so much.
Brett is my very best date for going to a show. He doesn’t mind that I’m a big fool and get all teary-eyed for an overture (any overture, I don’t care, I’m just so happy to be there) and he doesn’t care when I have to tell him every little thing I know about the show during intermission. Only he can’t go with me because the baby is suffering from stranger anxiety and would have a miserable time with any non-parent for an evening. (My mother-in-law kindly said she didn’t mind if Madison cried for three hours and I said, “Well, I would mind if Madison cried for three hours even if I weren’t there to hear it although I appreciate the gesture.”)
My birthday is next week and this wasn’t even a birthday present. It was just a “gosh Dawn, you seem like a gal who could use a pick-me-up so I thought I’d treat you to a show” present. Darnit.
It’s such a lot of money and I can’t really think of anyone who would love to go. It’s way too adult a musical to bring Noah so he’s out. None of my other friends are much for showtunes and I don’t want to go with somone who’s lukewarm about the idea.
I’m planning on asking my mom but she’s likely asleep right now so I can’t ask her yet. But it’s a work night so we’ll have to see.
The truth is, what I’d rather have had was a card from Brett saying he would buy me tickets. Then I could have flung my arms around him, kissed him soundly, thanked him for the thought and refused. Instead I was a non-gracious receiver of a present. I wrinkled my brow and said, “But I don’t want to go.” That’s not the first thing I said but near enough that poor Brett was let down.
I just can’t stand it. It’s so much money right on the heels of Christmas and I know that even though I said the tickets could be an early birthday present, Brett is going to buy me something then, too. He can’t help it. He always over-indulges me for holidays and birthdays. I wish I weren’t so cheap but I can’t help but do the math and worry about the expense.
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Tags: Brett, Broadway, Madison, Music, my mom, Noah, showtunes
