Grandmothers and more experienced mothers: You’re starting to scare me. I appreciate the constant cooing over my little girl, I do. But the nostalgia you regularly voice is worrisome.
My year-old daughter, Lila, and I are regularly stopped by women who identify themselves as having “older” or “grown” children, and most don’t sound so happy about it. More experienced mothers constantly urge me to “enjoy this time” with my baby — as if I’m not — always assuring me “it goes fast.” As you say these things, you sound either wistful or like you’re delivering a warning.
Is it adolescence that everyone has in mind, when I fully anticipate Lila’s being in full teenage-rebellion mode — mortified by my every comment and very existence? Or is it something else, something more enduring? Perhaps it varies by mother.
On a recent outing to the supermarket, Lila was wearing her eye-catching pink floral hat. “Take pictures,” a woman told me. “When she’s older, she’ll never believe she wore that. I know. I used to dress my kids in special clothes like that when they were younger, but now they’re teenagers.”
She looked unhappy as she said it — her voice betraying the sentiment of my own mother’s oft-repeated maxim: “Bigger kids, bigger problems.”
Upon seeing Lila, a grandmother we often bump into in our neighborhood talks about her grandson. Apparently, he was a few years behind me in college. Standing before me, his mother – who also lives nearby – seems lost in her memories, recalling how she stayed home to raise her two sons. It sounds like those were cherished days.
Truth is, some of you sound almost heartbroken.
One of the best protest signs I’ve seen lately was at Saturday’s ‘National Protest Against the War on Women.’ It reads: “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.” I”ll amend that in my response to the question, Katie Roiphe raises, of whether or not there’s a taboo around being childfree. Yes, there is, and I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation.
On my next birthday, I’ll be 34, which, from what I understand, is around the time my biological clock is supposed to start screaming at me, although I know folks for whom this screaming started a while ago.
But I’ve known I didn’t want children since I was one myself. I’ll be honest: There’s nothing attractive about child-rearing to me. And I hope that if I ever start to hear this alleged siren of breeding, I’ll be able to hold the fact that my life right now is the life I want, and that once children are had, I can’t go back in time and get that life again. (Nope, not even when they’re 18 or 30.)
If there is one thing I’ve learned in 33 years of living in a female body, it is that every decision I make that’s not in line with traditionally accepted gender roles will be pathologized. Without children, Roiphe suggests that I can’t even be a grown up in the right way. Apparently, what makes someone a grown up is doing what people tell you to do — even if you know, deep down, that it’s not what you want or what would be good for you.
Teen Vogue magazine began mysteriously arriving in our mail a couple of months ago (probably because I subscribe to Vogue proper and the algorithms know how old my children are), and I am doing my best to keep it away from my 13-year-old daughter.
I take a quick look through it and then tuck it a few layers into the recycling pile.
To be sure, Teen Vogue includes an occasional redeeming story, like this one about young philanthropist Yael Cohen, and her F*** Cancer organization, which has raised more than $1 million to fund education about the early detection of breast cancer.
Still, it doesn’t seem to counterbalance the dozens of stories about fashion and makeup and TV personalities that avalanche through on paper and on the magazine’s website: Ashley Greene in jeans showing that she has a huge space between her thighs! Fairy Tale Prom Dresses! Actress Emma Watson, looking oh-so-Twiggy, and her ‘Red Carpet Secrets!’ Kendall and Kylie Jenner, new ‘creative directors’ for Venus brand razors talking about why they never leave the house without shaving their legs! How they learned from their older sisters, like, how to shave and, like, the right way to do it with, like, shaving gel!
These are not the models of woman-hood I want Girlchik exposed to.
More diligent and disciplined parents, tracing the first months of their kids’ lives, fill out pretty diaries, recording the minute progress, saving bibs, pasting photographs — in short, getting started on the great family blackmail file. We’ve made a few feeble attempts in that direction, too, but the efforts weren’t exactly sustained. Our son’s first birthday, however, loosely coincided with the publication party for my first book of poetry, “Jazz Talmud,” which contained, among other writings, a few frenzied efforts to capture some of the particularly memorable moments and sketches of our son’s life. To coincide with National Poetry Month, (April) I recorded them:
Poetics of Early Fatherhood from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo.
Jake Marmer is a poet and performer, and a frequent contributor to the Forward.
Like “Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik, I am an observant Jew, and had my first child while completing my Ph.D. (Mine was in experimental psychology; the actress’ was in neuroscience.) And like Bialik, I endorse and practice many aspects of ‘attachment parenting’: breastfeeding and late weaning, baby-wearing (using a sling), bed-sharing and positive discipline. So I thought I’d be a big fan of her new parenting book, “Beyond the Sling.”
And, indeed, there is much that drew me to her book. For example, I like the idea of being part of a community of parents struggling with how not to bribe their kids. But there are also aspects of “Beyond the Sling” that pushed me away.
Bialik explains in her book that she achieves her high-touch, high-attention parenting without the nannies or babysitters or personal chefs that you might expect from a TV star. But the author seems oblivious to the fact that her version of attachment parenting requires families to forgo a second income and to have either one parent who works a flexible schedule (like her husband did when their children were young) or outside help. And she bypasses altogether the reality of single parenthood.
A renewed search for Etan Patz’s remains has concluded. Nothing was found.
The 6-year-old boy allowed to walk to his school bus in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood on a May morning in 1979 never made it. Instead, he was kidnapped, and his parents had ripped from them the chance to tuck him into bed each night and raise him to be a good boy, kind and sweet and loving.
Etan’s murder led to many things: National Missing Children’s Day, each May 25, the anniversary of his disappearance. It began a national conversation about how independent we can afford to let our children be — and that conversation continues to this day and again moved the fore, following the abduction and murder, last year, of little Leiby Kletzky, in Boro Park.
Years ago, a matchmaker told me, “A stranger is just a friend you’ve yet to meet.” I laughed, finding the sentiment corny.
After all, as a native New Yorker I’d been raised with the opposite philosophy. My father had warned: “If a stranger talks to you, run away. They’re either dangerous or crazy.” I grew up in the suburbs of pre-Giuliani New York, and my parents didn’t want my sister and me talking to strangers anywhere.
I have since straddled my innate New York nature and my non-New York location, when talking to strangers. Nothing has tipped the balance more than becoming a new mother, as chatty strangers are now everywhere. Lila is both the magnet and the barometer, instantly separating out suitable conversation partners, based on how they react to her.
Let’s face it: an overwhelming number of the modern world’s greatest achievements have come from the United States. Behind all of those accomplishments are human beings, all of whom, presumably, have mothers and fathers. So I ask: If this is true, why are American parents — more specifically, American mothers — so insecure about the way they raise their children? Why are they so certain that somewhere else in the world, parents in other countries and cultures must be doing it better?
First it was Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” comparing American mothers unfavorably to their Chinese counterparts, and finding Americans terribly lacking when it comes to producing classical music virtuosos and getting kids accepted to Harvard. Chua made moms very existence did not revolve around schlepping children to study with the world’s top violinists, and drilling them in algebra and chemistry feel horribly lacking.
Now, after the mommy brigade has barely recovered from Chua-mania comes “Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting” by Pamela Druckerman. The title alone turned my stomach with its implication that if French parenting is wise, the Americans version must clearly be unwise. The British publisher of the same book judiciously injected a little skeptical humor into the title, naming the book “French Children Don’t Throw Food” (because, really, would the British ever admit that the French possessed superior wisdom?)
Susan B. Anthony was born 192 years ago today; we share a birthday. I am 43. The late great suffragist once said: “Our job is not to make young women grateful. It’s to make them ungrateful so they keep going.” Much of my Jewish practice these days is about gratitude. But in light of our shared birthday this week, I’ve decided to dwell on some serious ingratitude.
I grew up in the 1970s listening to “Free to Be You and Me,” and singing joyfully that “Mommies Are People.” Who would have guessed, now that I’m one of those people, that the dilemmas my own working mother struggled with would become mine? In middle school, when I’d call home sick my mom would try to talk me into returning to class, so that she wouldn’t have to leave work or find a sitter. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’d do, too.
These days, the lack of affordable quality childcare options, combined with the continual calculation of income-to-babysitter-hours ratio, continues to make working parenthood — let’s face it, working motherhood primarily — a challenge, even for those of us who’ve got it good.
Is there a statute of limitations for how long a grown man should hold a grudge against his father?
I have asked myself that over and over ever since I read the Talk of the Town in the Jan. 23 issue of the New Yorker — the one entitled “Moving Day,” about the actor and comedian David Cross and his move from the passé (in his eyes) East Village to a spacious apartment in Brooklyn with a “ridiculously big” walk-in closet and a dead-on view of Ellis Island.
“My dad went there with his family when he came over from England, shortly after World War Two, I think,” he’s quoted as saying.
All true. His father was a young boy when he left England with his mother to join his older brothers and his sister in New York. I know this because that sister was my mother.
My husband never babysits — and it doesn’t bother me one bit.
Allow me to explain: Following an extended maternity leave, I’m about to return to graduate school to complete my master’s degree in English literature. Naturally, people have been asking me about what I’m going to do for childcare. But since I was able to schedule all of my classes in the evening, my husband will be home by the time I leave for school.
“Great, so hubby is babysitting!” comes the usual reply. No he isn’t. He’s parenting. And calling him a “babysitter” insults this hard and important work that he does.
It is true that the vast majority of our baby’s care and other household duties fall to me, and I think that’s perfectly fair — given that I am home while my husband is working. Though he may not have the privilege of spending as much time with our son as I do, when he is home, he does everything that I do with the baby (minus the nursing).
Jewish law and tradition support an active role for fathers.
There she went, waving over her father’s shoulder. My husband pushed a loaded luggage cart outside the departure level sidewalk at JFK with one hand and carried our daughter with the other. I stood beside the car blowing kisses and watching her shout, “Bye, Mama!” until they were swallowed by the automatic doors and had disappeared into the terminal. Then, alone at the wheel, I had a Ferris Bueller moment:
YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
When my husband suggested taking our 2-year-old daughter to Los Angeles for nine days, where he had to travel for work and his parents had offered to take care of her, the prospect seemed bizarre. I hadn’t been apart from her for more than a couple days since she was born, and in those cases, it was she who stayed home with my parents as my husband and I ventured off for a quick weekend away. I thought about going along for the trip, but entering my eighth month of pregnancy, the thought of a cross-country flight seemed as appealing as hiking the Andes in six-inch heels.
So I agreed. I was still a bit tepid about the idea, but was warming up to it as their day of departure approached. Then it came. And it was glorious.
We’re almost at the end of 2011.
So can we be done now with the “animal” parents thing? There is no way you can pretend like you don’t know what I am talking about, what with the Oxford English Dictionary having just voted “tiger mother” a runner up for word of the year (the winner was “squeezed middle” aka the 99%).
For much of the year, we have had to endure the nonstop and still ongoing hype over Amy Chua’s “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” But the animal parenting has not been limited to large cats. Lisa Belkin reminded us in her Parentlode blog (for those of you who missed the memo, she recently ended her Motherlode gig at the New York Times and jumped over to HuffPo and gave her blog a more egalitarian name) that there are also “panda dads,” “hippo parents” (not a weight reference), “koala moms,” “pussycat moms,” “free range parents” (as in chickens, and the parenting style advocated by Forward contributor Lenore Skenazy), and “chameleon parents.” Belkin does a nice job explaining what all these different parenting styles are in a slideshow that accompanies her post.
The hardest thing about moving to Israel from the United States has been dealing with the fact that by moving here I have put my children in physical and moral danger. Of course I know that danger lurks everywhere — car accidents, cancer-causing pollutants, violent criminals. When I am in a mall in Israel with my kids I worry about them being blown up, whereas when I am in a mall with my kids in the U.S. I worry about them being abducted. Different place, different dangers. I know that.
Is living in any country morally neutral? America was built on the backs of slaughtered natives; when I lived in New York, I regularly had to walk by homeless people. When I lived in Washington, D.C., the line between black D.C. and white D.C. reminded me of East and West Jerusalem. Growing up in suburban New York, I went to an Orthodox Jewish day school and summer camp; I did not have non-Orthodox Jews in my social circle, let alone non-Jews. Though we had some Christian white neighbors, there were no blacks, Asians or Hispanics and certainly no Muslims.
While I am unhappy with the segregated reality in Israel, at least there are some Muslim and Christian Arab kids in my children’s school, and we send the kids on Arab-Jewish interfaith summer programs. We live in Lower Galilee in a highly Palestinian and Arab-Israeli-populated area, so interact daily with Arabs. My children learn Arabic in school, and we make an effort to socialize with Arabs. My kids are, without a doubt, less Arab-phobic than their peers in Jewish day schools in the U.S.
Friday we bring Boychik to college for the first time. My friends have taken to asking me how I’m doing in a way usually reserved for inquiring about a serious medical condition.
I say that we are happy and excited. Boychik is going to an amazing school that will undoubtedly help him grow intellectually, emotionally and even spiritually. It looks like it will be a great fit.
And he’ll be just over an hour away — far enough for him and close enough for us. There’s also texting and videochatting and all that stuff that makes me think that apron strings are a lot stretchier today than they were when I first left home.
My daughter is graduating high school today. This is a huge moment in life — probably more for her than for me, although I’m not sure — and the mass of thoughts and emotions are a bit overwhelming.
The moment Avigayil was born, I was born as well. Her entry in the universe was transformative for me, as she turned me from person into parent — a permanent alteration, a complete reconfiguration of all one knows to be true in the world. This tiny, spectacular creature who has, at different times, kept me up at night (more recently than one might think), sent me running and chasing, challenged some of my most basic beliefs and completely unhinged me, has also taught me how to love unconditionally, how to stretch beyond the limitations of my experience and how to imagine a different world. Somehow, despite the fact that she came out of my body a mere 18 years ago, her vision of life is completely her own, her identity proudly independent and strong. I am in awe of her entire person, and her continued presence, the blessed intertwining of our journeys, has been nothing short of a divine gift.
There is something profoundly sad for me, too.
There is a beautiful piece in yesterday’s New York Times travel section, an essay by House & Garden editor Dominique Browning on her attempt to forge a new relationship with her two young adult sons as they travel together by train across the country.
It is an apt piece for this time of year, the season of graduations and preparations for new leave-taking — on summer adventures, on gap-year journeys and to college, where Boychik is headed in September. It is a season of secular ceremonies, the high school graduation I will soon attend among them, with young people in caps and gowns wending their way toward adulthood. There ought to be a Jewish ritual to mark this liminal moment for our sons and daughters and, more to the point, for us.
But in the meantime, there is Browning’s essay, in which she gracefully writes about the challenge of meeting your young adult children as they are, so that you can still be in a relationship with them. A relationship different than the one marked by, as she puts it, “molding, scolding or holding,” which is generally the approach for the first 18-plus years of their lives.
So where have all the happy young mothers gone? Did you never really exist? Or are you afraid to speak up these days against the chorus of people insisting that young children bring far more stress and trouble than happiness?
Either way, I never hear from you anymore.
Over the last few years, as my husband and I have been moving towards starting a family of our own, the only word that seems to be rising up from the cave of early motherhood seem to be “help!”
The current conversation had its unofficial start when Ayelet Waldman peeled the curtain up on maternal ambivalence in a now-infamous New York Times essay in 2005, and then later her 2009 book “Bad Mother.” When I first read Waldman on motherhood I thought, bravo — it’s about time moms speak frankly and with some nuance about motherhood.
Since motherhood and the Middle East are what I’m all about these days, the first paragraph of a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal jumped out and bit me. Virginia Postrel writes, “Motherhood, it seems, is the Middle East of social controversy. Alliances may shift, new dogmas and leaders may arise, tactics may change, but the fundamental conflict resists resolution. Despite the efforts of would-be peacemakers, impassioned partisans continue battling to claim all the territory as their own. My way, they declare, is the one right way to be a good mother, a real woman, a fulfilled human being.”
Luckily, Postrel immediately addresses my main objection to the metaphor, by quickly pointing out that: “Fortunately, nobody dies in the mommy wars.” Yes, indeed, that is very fortunate. Happily, nobody gets maimed, tortured, traumatized or held prisoner in the mommy wars either.
Let’s put the relative seriousness and ramifications of the two conflicts aside — because after all, a wounded ego is not really comparable to a wound caused by gunshots or bomb blasts. But is there any real basis for a comparison, even a flip one, between the sniping that goes on between Israelis and Palestinians and the back-and-forth between stay-at-home moms and working mothers?
While reading Elana Sztokman’s recent Sisterhood post about her friend who had decided to have an abortion, I found myself responding very strongly. While I’ll admit that I am stubbornly pro-choice, it is not the actual decision to have the abortion that filled me with admiration for Elana’s friend — it was her decision to be a childless, married, woman living in Israeli society.
I have had countless discussions with my female friends and peers on the societal demand placed on young Israeli woman (particularly in Orthodox circles) to get married and have a baby — and fast. I am a high school senior. It is therefore only natural that the subject of our future is constantly being discussed: With it comes the talk of diamond rings and weddings and three beautiful children (first two boys and then a girl, in that order). Now, don’t get me wrong. I too can’t help but squeal with glee when I think of myself in a lovely white gown surrounded by friends and family as I walk down the aisle. But the difference between my friends and me is that my future wedding is still very much a fantasy. I have no doubt that it will happen, but I certainly do not expect to be looking at halls or printing invitations for many, many years. I’m only 17.
That is where my frustration begins.
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