Once upon a time there was a boy named Luke who had a cow named Moop. Luke and Moop travelled the world in various transforming vehicles like garbage-truck-submarines and concrete-mixer-helicopters, making great escapes from evil situations like naptime and timeouts.
There are the fairy tales I write in my head as I drive to work, reading them for bedtime, with my son Lucas. As bedtime approaches, and Daddys looks to start the teethbrushing routine, Lucas cries, "No, I want Mommy to put me to bed!" followed by dramatic lying on the floor and pretend tears.
"It's Daddy's turn," Hubby says firmly, knowing I'm exhausted from work, but often I relent anyways and pick up the PJ battle. As tired as I am, I have to admit, I enjoy crawling under Lucas' big duvet, cuddling him close, and sharing storytime.
Most days we read one of his books: one of his Clifford the damn dog books, for the hundredth time; or something from his Curious George collection, featuring the lackadaisical guardian, the man with the yellow hat who both annoys and inspires me; or Click Clack Moo, the subversive barnyard tale that promotes animals unionizing. But lately, he's been asking, "Mommy can you tell me the Moop story?" And my storytelling ego rises inside, delighted to have an audinece.
"Well you know what happened to Luke today?" I start.
"He goes in time out?" Lucas responds, eagerly.
"Yes, but just as his teacher brought him to the time out bench, Moop arrived."
Lucas squeals. "No one can see him."
"That's right. And it's good because he was driving a big truck. Do you know what it was?"
"A cable repair truck!" Lucas offers.
"Exactly!" I exclaim. "How did you know?"
This is how our story goes now, my leading, him filling in the blanks. And when Lucas veers to potty talk that is incomprehensible because he's laughing at himself so loudly, I usually make up some kind of ridiculous conflict that requires the vehicle to transform in order to escape or save the day. Back in reality, Luke has daydreamed through his whole time out and "lives happily ever after."
When I come down the stairs after putting Lucas to bed, Hubby says, "What were you guys killing yourselves laughing about?"
I tell him and he shakes his head, amused by our imaginations. It's not that he doesn't have one, but he's much more a realist.
I've read that before the age of five, the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred. Admittedly, I milk this with Lucas, letting him lead me into his head and playing there with him. We play camping under every blanket, he has lengthy conversations (dare I say, relationships) with each of my toes, we role play situations he's scared of and turn every monster into a waiter bringing us snacks. Day-to-day, his imagination probably drives those around him crazy, as he sells ice cream behind every makeshift counter many many times a day, and everything, and I mean everything, he does is followed by commentary from his imaginary friend/alter-ego, MooMoo.
But this precious gift that kids come with - imagination - is the greatest gift I can nurture in him. My imagination has been my saviour throughout my life. There were my own imaginary friends, Samuel, Marty, and Brian, who helped through the transition to seven different school in my elementary years. That lack of stability meant that I needed to create my own stable worlds where I control the characters, setting and plot, and I have continued to do so to this day. My imagination has served as a form of therapy for me, as I've roleplayed situations to come, and come to terms with situations that have passed.
Most people let go of their imaginations as they grow up - it's hard not to. But I believe it's a skill that most people stop practicing, and then have to turn to Hollywood or video games to fill the gap. If I can, I will nurture Lucas' ability to fantasize his dreams, because that's where dreams start; to escape reality when he needs to without alcohol or drugs; to create stories that battle any fears and right any wrongs. This world is complicated enough to deal with as is - my son might as well have an imaginary superhero cow on his side.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
After posting my last blog, I felt a little knot in my stomach. I had passionately argued that it was critical for me to be writing about motherhood as it was my necessary contribution to the movement that is happening to redefine motherhood. More importantly, it had become my way to understand my own evolving identity as a mother and relationship with my son. I was also, as the title indicated, putting aside the ethical dilemma of writing about my son. Sharing that so publicly was what invoked that sick feeling in my gut. It was putting myself out on a limb, saying something I knew I might later regret, but doing it anyways.
But the result was more fruitful than most blogs I’ve written. Two mama-writers went on write their own blog pieces in response, a fact that I’m both honoured and humbled by. Paula Kiger, aka MomforLife, crafted How Much Longer Will I Be Blogging About My Children, where she explains that her number one reason for blogging is to keep her writing muscle strong (she is also a runner, so the metaphor is more than relevant). She writes that "to leave my children out of THAT equation would be the most unnatural thing in the world." Scattered Mom cautions that the stories we tell aren't ours alone in When Kids Stories Become Their Own. She shares that "when we have children, and are writers, writing about the changes we face and our evolving role as their mothers is perfectly acceptable, but as our children also grow and evolve, our task becomes more arduous."
I was struck by Scattered Mom's warning, and immediately wanted to take down my blog post. But as I'm learning from working with faculty at university, a bit of tension is not a bad thing. It sparks dialogue and that is the only thing that moves ideas forward. In my last yoga class, the teacher emphasized that "there is comfort in discomfort", an idea that I hadn't considered as I live my life seeking comfort and avoiding discomfort. But this piece, and the feedback that is supportive yet dissonant, reminded me of this important notion.
One of the discomforts I avoid is this ethical dilemma. Although I wrote about "putting it aside", I’m very aware of the moral ambiguity around my decision to share my story of motherhood, much of which is also my son's story, my husband's story, my family's story. Recently, when a piece I submitted two years ago got accepted to be published in a book, I reread the essay with terror in my heart hoping I hadn't overshared or offended anyone now that the readership was going to grow from my normal handful to masses. This is the dilemma of a memoir writer. And it's not just moms. My writer-friend QueerMommy, who teaches screenplay-writing at the graduate level, explains that all writers face this grey area when delving into their own lives or past for material.
But being a mother of young children, I have to own the fact that I'm accountable for what I choose to share. As Caitlyn from http://ImaginingBetter.com commented, it's about being responsible parents. To take that one step further, it's about being as concerned with our child's safety as we are about their online identity. Scatteredmom says poignantly: "The writer in me may see situations that I long to share, but as his mother, I know that in doing so I would rob him of pieces of his childhood that are ours alone or even cause him humiliation and pain as he struggles, like we all do, to become the man he eventually will be. We mother/writers become, in essence, stewards of their childhood."
This resonates deeply with me. In my work with university students, I sometimes have the privelege of mentoring a young guy on their journey from annoying geeky boy to responsible mature young man. The journey for them is awkward and painful, and through the process, I'm aware that my words to them must be carefully chosen not to offend, assume or direct. When I imagine my son as these boys, I see how again, my words must be thoughtfully considered, or I will, without a doubt, alienate him.
Don't get me wrong - it's not as if I write without an internal censor now. Certainly, I've created specific lines that I don't cross when writing about my husband, my parents, and certain friends. But when it comes to my son, the lines have been more blurred. His being here is largely what has stirred the pot enough to give rise to the internal conflicts that I'm writing about. Although I am thoughtful about what I put out there, I am sickly aware that there may be pieces that I publish that don't seem problematic which could later come to haunt my son or our relationship.
I remember going to an event last year which featured mother-authors from the books: Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood and Between Interruptions. Panelist Dorothy Woodend, whose mother is also a writer (Luanne Armstrong) explained how she and her siblings always felt like her mom was always looking at them for material. I would lying if I admitted I hadn't observed my son's actions or stretched out a conversation with him because I knew I would be writing about it.
Is that being a steward of his childhood?
I don’t know, but the ever presense of this moral issue will ensure that I take this seriously. After 25 years of struggling to define myself as a writer, it's doubtful that I will stop now that I'm actually writing for an interested audience. And if this period where there is an audience for these blogs and market for momoirs is short-lived, then so be it. I wouldn’t miss this ride, but after exploring this issue, I do know I will have to own for my words, so I better watch my mouth. And as my son grows, I will have to figure out how to honour him and my role as his steward. Will I give him veto power over my work? Will he write stories with me? Will I start developing firmer lines about what I share? I don't know yet, but I do know that as he grows up, we will need to negotiate his role in my writing life, whether I like it or not.
But the result was more fruitful than most blogs I’ve written. Two mama-writers went on write their own blog pieces in response, a fact that I’m both honoured and humbled by. Paula Kiger, aka MomforLife, crafted How Much Longer Will I Be Blogging About My Children, where she explains that her number one reason for blogging is to keep her writing muscle strong (she is also a runner, so the metaphor is more than relevant). She writes that "to leave my children out of THAT equation would be the most unnatural thing in the world." Scattered Mom cautions that the stories we tell aren't ours alone in When Kids Stories Become Their Own. She shares that "when we have children, and are writers, writing about the changes we face and our evolving role as their mothers is perfectly acceptable, but as our children also grow and evolve, our task becomes more arduous."
I was struck by Scattered Mom's warning, and immediately wanted to take down my blog post. But as I'm learning from working with faculty at university, a bit of tension is not a bad thing. It sparks dialogue and that is the only thing that moves ideas forward. In my last yoga class, the teacher emphasized that "there is comfort in discomfort", an idea that I hadn't considered as I live my life seeking comfort and avoiding discomfort. But this piece, and the feedback that is supportive yet dissonant, reminded me of this important notion.
One of the discomforts I avoid is this ethical dilemma. Although I wrote about "putting it aside", I’m very aware of the moral ambiguity around my decision to share my story of motherhood, much of which is also my son's story, my husband's story, my family's story. Recently, when a piece I submitted two years ago got accepted to be published in a book, I reread the essay with terror in my heart hoping I hadn't overshared or offended anyone now that the readership was going to grow from my normal handful to masses. This is the dilemma of a memoir writer. And it's not just moms. My writer-friend QueerMommy, who teaches screenplay-writing at the graduate level, explains that all writers face this grey area when delving into their own lives or past for material.
But being a mother of young children, I have to own the fact that I'm accountable for what I choose to share. As Caitlyn from http://ImaginingBetter.com commented, it's about being responsible parents. To take that one step further, it's about being as concerned with our child's safety as we are about their online identity. Scatteredmom says poignantly: "The writer in me may see situations that I long to share, but as his mother, I know that in doing so I would rob him of pieces of his childhood that are ours alone or even cause him humiliation and pain as he struggles, like we all do, to become the man he eventually will be. We mother/writers become, in essence, stewards of their childhood."
This resonates deeply with me. In my work with university students, I sometimes have the privelege of mentoring a young guy on their journey from annoying geeky boy to responsible mature young man. The journey for them is awkward and painful, and through the process, I'm aware that my words to them must be carefully chosen not to offend, assume or direct. When I imagine my son as these boys, I see how again, my words must be thoughtfully considered, or I will, without a doubt, alienate him.
Don't get me wrong - it's not as if I write without an internal censor now. Certainly, I've created specific lines that I don't cross when writing about my husband, my parents, and certain friends. But when it comes to my son, the lines have been more blurred. His being here is largely what has stirred the pot enough to give rise to the internal conflicts that I'm writing about. Although I am thoughtful about what I put out there, I am sickly aware that there may be pieces that I publish that don't seem problematic which could later come to haunt my son or our relationship.
I remember going to an event last year which featured mother-authors from the books: Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood and Between Interruptions. Panelist Dorothy Woodend, whose mother is also a writer (Luanne Armstrong) explained how she and her siblings always felt like her mom was always looking at them for material. I would lying if I admitted I hadn't observed my son's actions or stretched out a conversation with him because I knew I would be writing about it.
Is that being a steward of his childhood?
I don’t know, but the ever presense of this moral issue will ensure that I take this seriously. After 25 years of struggling to define myself as a writer, it's doubtful that I will stop now that I'm actually writing for an interested audience. And if this period where there is an audience for these blogs and market for momoirs is short-lived, then so be it. I wouldn’t miss this ride, but after exploring this issue, I do know I will have to own for my words, so I better watch my mouth. And as my son grows, I will have to figure out how to honour him and my role as his steward. Will I give him veto power over my work? Will he write stories with me? Will I start developing firmer lines about what I share? I don't know yet, but I do know that as he grows up, we will need to negotiate his role in my writing life, whether I like it or not.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
One day my son will realize I'm a writer and I'm writing about him. And he'll have an opinion about it. I even crafted a futuristic scenario in a previous blog, Future Therapy Session for Lucas, where I imagined a sullen young adult version of Lucas seething with anger at me for blogging about him. Of course, it's a fear I have that what I'm doing could somehow hurt him by its publicness. But after reading an article, My 10 New Ground Rules for Writing in Public about the Kids, I found myself disputing the idea that I need to give him a nickname and veto power over my writing as the author suggests.
Because I'm fairly convinced that if I didn't write, they'd have called social services on me by now. It's what I do to calm my extreme reactions, to separate the pressures from society from my reality, to make sense of the muddle that motherhood makes of everything. It's my yoga, my treadmill, my therapist - it's how I process and how I cope and how I stay sane. And it may be that in doing so publicly, I push against the comfort zones of my family and friends and, when he is aware, of my son's.
"I never write about my husband in anything but a positive light," I tell my writing group. They wait, thinking there is a punchline. But that's it. Hubby makes it pretty easy to write positively about him - he is so far from the stereotypical "stupid dad" or "slacker husband" and we have fifteen years of foundation beneath us that helps me feel strong in our relationship. But if I am truthful, this decision limits what I write about, but it's a conscious choice I've made to maintain our relationship. It helps that he is completely positive about what I write, and assumes no control over my writing. He would never have veto power over what I publish, but we have an unspoken rule about what's written.
The same has not yet been established between my son and I. In fact, as I'm writing this, he climbs on the edge of the couch and asks me, "Mommy, what are you doing?"
"I'm writing," I tell him. "About you." I pause, considering the topic I'm addressing. "What do you think about that?"
"It's good," he says then runs upstairs.
I wish I could count that as his approval, but I know he's not at a age to comprehend what I'm really doing. I don't feel like I'm writing anything that will hurt him, but I'm aware that that's not for me to say. It's funny because I'm completely uncomfortable with conflict. I avoid it specifically in all areas of my life. And yet, this is one area, I feel compelled to stir the pot. I've always been a writer, but ever since becoming a mother, I can't help but go public with my struggles, observations, and guilt.
After reading Erica Jong's piece in the Wall Street Journal on Mother Madness, I think I know why.
She writes, "as long as women remain the gender most responsible for children, we are the ones who have the most to lose by accepting the "noble savage" view of parenting, with its ideals of attachment and naturalness. We need to be released from guilt about our children, not further bound by it. We need someone to say: Do the best you can. There are no rules." It's not attachment parenting I have a problem with - it's the societal pressure to adhere to attachment parenting or being a supermom or [insert idealistic motherhood notion here].
I feel like, if I could start a movement, it would be around ending the pretense that motherhood is natural, simple, or happy-happy. I want the world to realize that the idealism of motherhood, the extreme parenting philosophies, and the perfection displayed in parenting magazines and ads, are just insults to all of us who are doing our best to raise our kids. Worse, they cripple us by invoking guilt and stress and exhaustion as we parents try to do it all and realize we can't.
I don't have to start this movement - it is happening already - as evidenced by the popularity of mommy blogging and articles like this making it into the Wall Street journal and momoir anthologies coming out into the mainstream. So, I put aside the ethnical dilemma of writing about my son. Because it's my way to be part of this movement. Because I can't live a lie and pretend that motherhood is what its not. I have to bear witness to this journey, this challenge, this life-changing experience. I have to share my story and inspire others to share theirs. I have to push back, to stir the pot, the invoke some conflict, and step out WAY out of my comfort zone to do so. Because I can't not. For me, as a writer, it would be a moral dilemma to stay silent.
In the end, you can look at me in either of the two ways I can look at myself. On the one hand, I'm a narcissistic woman blogging publicly about her kid as a way to make sense of our relationship. On the other hand, I'm a writer documenting a social phenomenon. Either way, I am attempting to redefine motherhood, both for myself and the world around me.
Because I'm fairly convinced that if I didn't write, they'd have called social services on me by now. It's what I do to calm my extreme reactions, to separate the pressures from society from my reality, to make sense of the muddle that motherhood makes of everything. It's my yoga, my treadmill, my therapist - it's how I process and how I cope and how I stay sane. And it may be that in doing so publicly, I push against the comfort zones of my family and friends and, when he is aware, of my son's.
"I never write about my husband in anything but a positive light," I tell my writing group. They wait, thinking there is a punchline. But that's it. Hubby makes it pretty easy to write positively about him - he is so far from the stereotypical "stupid dad" or "slacker husband" and we have fifteen years of foundation beneath us that helps me feel strong in our relationship. But if I am truthful, this decision limits what I write about, but it's a conscious choice I've made to maintain our relationship. It helps that he is completely positive about what I write, and assumes no control over my writing. He would never have veto power over what I publish, but we have an unspoken rule about what's written.
The same has not yet been established between my son and I. In fact, as I'm writing this, he climbs on the edge of the couch and asks me, "Mommy, what are you doing?"
"I'm writing," I tell him. "About you." I pause, considering the topic I'm addressing. "What do you think about that?"
"It's good," he says then runs upstairs.
I wish I could count that as his approval, but I know he's not at a age to comprehend what I'm really doing. I don't feel like I'm writing anything that will hurt him, but I'm aware that that's not for me to say. It's funny because I'm completely uncomfortable with conflict. I avoid it specifically in all areas of my life. And yet, this is one area, I feel compelled to stir the pot. I've always been a writer, but ever since becoming a mother, I can't help but go public with my struggles, observations, and guilt.
After reading Erica Jong's piece in the Wall Street Journal on Mother Madness, I think I know why.
She writes, "as long as women remain the gender most responsible for children, we are the ones who have the most to lose by accepting the "noble savage" view of parenting, with its ideals of attachment and naturalness. We need to be released from guilt about our children, not further bound by it. We need someone to say: Do the best you can. There are no rules." It's not attachment parenting I have a problem with - it's the societal pressure to adhere to attachment parenting or being a supermom or [insert idealistic motherhood notion here].
I feel like, if I could start a movement, it would be around ending the pretense that motherhood is natural, simple, or happy-happy. I want the world to realize that the idealism of motherhood, the extreme parenting philosophies, and the perfection displayed in parenting magazines and ads, are just insults to all of us who are doing our best to raise our kids. Worse, they cripple us by invoking guilt and stress and exhaustion as we parents try to do it all and realize we can't.
I don't have to start this movement - it is happening already - as evidenced by the popularity of mommy blogging and articles like this making it into the Wall Street journal and momoir anthologies coming out into the mainstream. So, I put aside the ethnical dilemma of writing about my son. Because it's my way to be part of this movement. Because I can't live a lie and pretend that motherhood is what its not. I have to bear witness to this journey, this challenge, this life-changing experience. I have to share my story and inspire others to share theirs. I have to push back, to stir the pot, the invoke some conflict, and step out WAY out of my comfort zone to do so. Because I can't not. For me, as a writer, it would be a moral dilemma to stay silent.
In the end, you can look at me in either of the two ways I can look at myself. On the one hand, I'm a narcissistic woman blogging publicly about her kid as a way to make sense of our relationship. On the other hand, I'm a writer documenting a social phenomenon. Either way, I am attempting to redefine motherhood, both for myself and the world around me.
Friday, November 5, 2010
I've been thinking alot about creating rituals for my family, without realizing it was already happening. I wrote this piece for Hybrid Mom exploring the idea of Developing Family Rituals.
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