RIP Mary Kay Blakely, American Mom

One life stamps and influences another, which in turn stamps and influences another, on and on, until the soul of human experience breathes on in generations we’ll never even meet.
Mary Kay Blakely

First of all, I still exist! I know it’s been forever since I posted on this blog. I will write an update soon about a major new development in my life — a positive one. But right now, I want to remember a woman I met a handful of times who made an impact on me, influencing my mothering before I ever encountered her in person.

I just learned this morning about the passing of Mary Kay Blakely, former New York Times columnist, regular contributor to Ms Magazine, professor of magazine journalism for the University of Missouri, and author of the book American Mom. This book was published the year before I gave birth to my firstborn, and reading it helped anchor me when I felt adrift in my new role.

Blakely talked about a society that “gives men irresponsible power and women powerless responsibility.” She spoke honestly about how humbling parenthood can be — how you’re going to mess up, and your kids are going to mess up, and many things that affect your kids are out of your control. How everything you do as a mom will be scrutinized and criticized by someone, so just do what you believe is right rather than sacrificing your kids to please the neighbors. And in the middle of all these challenges, you will find many moments of deep fulfillment. I needed that perspective. A huge lesson I learned is that parents, especially mothers, need to have each others’ backs. When you see a parent struggling, offer help rather than judgment.

When my kids were still young, Blakely moved to my city. I was an officer in the local writers’ guild at the time. Overcoming my social anxiety, I cold called her by email to ask if she would consider being the keynote speaker for our annual conference. It’s not a major conference, and I thought it was a long shot request. But she responded with an immediate and enthusiastic yes, also agreeing to lead a breakout session on memoir writing. She was extremely gracious and generous with her time and knowledge for the pittance we were able to pay.

At the conference, she told the funniest story about the title of her book. She had really, really, really wanted to call it Raising Terrorists (tongue in cheek because active kids), but her editor was adamant that American Mom would sell a lot more copies. On the way to her book release, she was running late and speeding, only to get pulled over by the police. She was able to talk her way out of the ticket because she explained where she was headed and showed the cop a box of the book copies she had with her – a book not titled Raising Terrorists. The lesson she learned was there are times to trust your editor.

I encountered her again a small handful of times over the years at various gatherings for writers, and every time, she was just as gracious, as happy to interact with unpublished aspiring writers as with the most accomplished in the group. I get the impression that was simply who she was — an authentic soul who cared about people.

RIP, Mary Kay Blakely, and a posthumous thank you, one American mom to another.

Major League Adulting

My 18-year-old son has done some major league adulting the past couple of weeks, tackling challenges that can leave even the most seasoned grown-up looking around in panic for a more adulty adult.

First, he cast his first ever vote by absentee ballot. I always vote, and have always kept my life boring enough that I was sure to be in town on election day, able to go to the polling place. Absentee voting was new to me, but between the two of us we figure out how to get him a ballot. I only helped him with the easy first step.

After he received the ballot, he earned his stars on the chart for grown-up responsibility by researching every candidate and issue before marking his selections. I didn’t realize he would have to get it notarized before returning it. But he figured out how to do this all on his own. This is the kind of thing that can shut down people much older than he is. It makes my heart sing to know that voting is important enough to my offspring that he made the effort to go find a notary by himself. I wonder how many people stop at that point in the process.

His second major bit of adulting involved an injury. He wrecked his bicycle and hurt his wrist. He messaged me a few minutes after the incident, and I urged him to go to the Student Health Center immediately. Once again, I helped him as I could through the first steps, even describing to him what I saw on Google street view to help him find the building. Once he was in the doors, though, he was on his own for the first time handling a medical emergency. I prepared myself to jump in my car and drive 95 miles right away if they wanted to send him on to the hospital. However, they sent him away with an ace bandage and the opinion that it was unlikely he had a fracture.Stymied in my frantic desire to save the day in a motherly way, I hopped on-line and ordered a box of instant cold packs delivered to his dorm overnight.

A few days later, my kid had a follow-up with the health center and they decided he should go get X-rays. They put an actual brace on in the meantime. This was last Friday. He messaged me saying he needed to get it done over the weekend. Again, I pulled on my SuperMom cape only to be told to pack it away. I made plans A, B, C and D for getting together with him and going for the scans at a place covered under our insurance. Then I talked to him on the phone and he was all like “I can do it at the hospital near campus. They have a deal with the school. It’s a flat $35 fee.” Oh.

Did he at least want me to drive down and go over there with him, for moral and logistical support? He didn’t see any reason for it. Oh. He did it. Got himself to the hospital, handled the paperwork and got X-rays done, all on his own. In case you’re curious about what the scan showed, I am, too. He goes back to Student Health tomorrow to find out the results.

I wish I were able to help him more, but can’t say I’m displeased at his level of competence. Whatever happens with grades and school, he’s obviously developing the skills to cope with adult life. But I’m still ready to jump in the car if he needs me.

Older Teens/Young Adults – What I’ve Learned From Motherhood

My kids both had birthdays this week. They’re now 19 and 16 years old respectively. The 19-year-old is a commuter student, living at home while attending college. Witnessing my kids enter their young adult years, I find myself thinking a lot about my parenting “career” and how reality has or hasn’t meshed with my expectations.

It seems I know many people with new babies and/or young children right now, too Because life goes on, I suppose. Hearing the conversations and concerns of these newer parents brings back so many memories and brings forward an insight. Please forgive me for clicheing here, but now that I have a longer view, I’m more aware of what it means to miss the forest for the trees.

I see these earnest discussions on-line, the same kinds in which I engaged back in the day, about things like whether it’s okay to use the words “good job” to encourage your kids. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. If you don’t use those words, or you do, it’s not going to make or break your child. If you love your kid and make them a priority and try your best, then you’ll pretty much do your best for them. It’s okay if you look at a drawing they made and say “Good job.” And it’s okay if you say, “I especially like the shade of blue you used for the sky.” And it’s okay if what you say is, “I love it.” And it’s okay if you say “You really worked hard on that.” What they care about is sharing their joy and accomplishment with you. You’re not going to give them a bad character by choosing one set of words over another. I wish I had spent less energy worrying about things like this over the years.

At least I’ve learned to stop clicking on links to articles that recount the ways in which well-meaning moms and dads (usually moms) are ruining their kids. Ruining them, I tell you. Because they help too much or too little with homework, or they praise too much or too little, or they’re too critical or too accepting of clothing choices. Which brings me to the next lesson I’ve learned as a parent. A million or more people are trying to make money by feeding into your desire to know how to do this sometimes bewildering job. Be selective about where you get advice. I’ve read a few things that helped me in a practical way and many things that were waste of the alphabet. In general, I’ve benefitted by reading accounts by other parents who admit they don’t have all the answers, who want to share the struggle and joy and what worked for them. I’ve found no benefit in articles and books that issue heavy-handed judgments for, I don’t know – spending a few minutes looking at your phone while you push your kid on a swing. I was going to mention specific books, but I think I’ll save that for a separate post.

I do have a few other gems to share, however, now that I’m an all-wise and knowing mom who has mostly raised her kids (ha!) The first being, that you never get to the point where you feel you have all the answers, or if you do, that’s when you get into real trouble. The life of a parent is a life of continual surprises. Here are a few more things, as they occur to me randomly:

*There is no finish line. When I was trying to decide whether to have kids, I’d think to myself “Well, it’s an 18-year commitment.” 19 years in, I laugh at young me. I see now my mom is 89 and still concerned about her children, still wanting to make sure we’re okay, still offering advice for treating that head cold.

*You get what you get. You can’t custom manufacture your children. They come into your life with personalities and characters and talents and struggles that are not of your choosing. A friend of mine once said she thought of it as tending a garden where someone else picked out the plants. A daisy is a daisy, a sunflower is a sunflower, and a bell pepper plant is a bell pepper plant. You can’t change one into another. What you can do is work on nurturing and creating conditions to allow your daisy to thrive as a daisy or your bell peppers to thrive as bell peppers.

*Keeping with the garden analogies, you can’t force a plant to grow by pulling on it. Again, you can nurture it and do your best to give it conditions in which it will grow and bloom. And that’s all. You can’t make your children reach developmental milestones on your schedule, or at all. Often, I found if I was having a real struggle teaching my kids something, the best tactic was wait and try again later. As a small example: my son didn’t learn to tie his shoes until he was seven. But then he learned in five minutes and I never had to show him again. Because he was ready. True story. In the meantime, I gave thanks for Velcro.

*Things will happen to your children over which you have no control. Sometimes these things will change the way you parent. A few years ago my son had a serious health crisis, involving major surgery and the need to keep him from being too active for several weeks. All of my carefully constructed policies about computer time went straight out the window. Also, because I had been so afraid he might die, I became much more indulgent in fulfilling my kids’ desires. It wasn’t a rational or planned response; it was pure emotion that made me say “Whatever they want, I’m going to get it for them if I can.” The pendulum swung back soon enough and I adopted a more balanced approach. But, boy howdy, did that event put my mind into focusing on the present, since the future is so uncertain. (He’s healthy now, by the way.)

*There’s nothing like seeing your child imitating your behavior to motivate you in breaking bad habits.

*Forgiveness is essential. Model it. Expect to need it.

*Don’t be too attached to your things. They’ll get broken or lost. One of my kids has broken a total of four windows over the years, each time in a new and creative way. One pulled the sliding door of a minivan right off its track, when we were already running late, and it was raining. People before things. Make it a mantra.

*Once you have a child, your comfort zone is a thing of the past. You will primarily reside outside of it. The upside is that you’ll experience a lot of personal growth. I’ve gone a long way in overcoming my own social anxiety because I’ve been forced in my role as mom to call strangers on the phone for various things, interact with teachers and other parents, and have awkward but necessary conversations. I’ve found myself in the principal’s office for the reasons you don’t want to be sitting there. I’ve reached out with invitations in ways I used to avoid for fear of rejection because I didn’t want to model fear-based relationships to my kids. I’ve found myself calling a woman I barely knew to tell her that her kid had pilfered Grandpa’s prescription pain pills after I found out about it accidentally. And you know what? I survived all of those things. I’ve discovered that discomfort is temporary and not fatal. And this discovery has helped me cope in other areas of life, including my paid work.

Despite my occasional fantasy of packing my car and driving away to find a studio apartment somewhere by myself, under an assumed name, I’d say motherhood has been good for me. It’s taught me a lot about life and generally made me a better person.

I’ll Take My Validation Where I Can Get It

Yesterday, my telephone ring tone – and by extension I myself, for choosing it – became an object of derision for my 15-year-old and a couple of his friends. Their conversation went on for what seemed way too long to me, as they found one reason after another why nobody should be subjected to listening to that particular ring-tone.

Thing is, it’s one of the presets. “Marimba”, for those who have the same phone options I do. It’s not like some embarrassing song I searched out and downloaded. It’s not “Baby Beluga” or “Take This Job and Shove It” or Rod Stewart singing “If you think I’m sexy…”

My sole defense was “Hey, I’m too cheap to pay for something when so many options came free with the phone. I picked one I liked.”

My son assures me nobody who knows anything about music would ever like that one. For what it’s worth, he does know quite a lot more about music than I do.

Today, I went to a movie with a friend: “20 Feet From Stardom.” It’s an excellent documentary. I highly recommend it. It’s about the lives and careers of back-up singers. One of the featured singers, Lisa Fischer, has supplied vocals for some major stars, including the Rolling Stones, and is praised left, right and center by many musicians in the film. At one point, she’s shown waking up to the sound of her cell phone. Guess what ring tone she uses. Yes, the same as mine. Ha!

I couldn’t wait to get home and share this tidbit with my son. “If it’s good enough for Lisa Fischer, it’s good enough for me,” I said. Not such a loser after all, am I?

Bonus: a relevant comic.