Spoiled Only Child

Change sucks

I'm feeling a bit nauseous right now. I just dropped Mia off for her second day in the 4-year-old class. She's in the same daycare where she's been since she was 6 months old, but it feels like a different world in her new class. She looked so shy and apprehensive as I walked away, I could barely contain my tears. I can't remember the last time I felt teary about dropping her off.

There are a few issues at play here, one of which is extremely touchy. But I'm going to go there because I believe in honesty. Let's do this in a list, and we'll save the best for last.

1. Change is always hard. As I told Mia in the car this morning, it always takes a while to get used to new things and places and people. You just have to deal with the feeling that you might throw up for a while, and eventually it subsides.
2. Her 3-year-old teachers were out-of-this-world great. It was by far the best year she's had, and I knew all year that we could never expect other teachers to match them. They were ambitious and enthusiastic and warm and smart, not a combination often found in a field where the salaries are poverty-level. I had become used to dropping her off to teachers who seemed genuinely overjoyed to see her each morning. They noticed when she wore new clothes, asked what she did over the weekend, even knew all the jibbets on her Crocs. Mia ran to them, practically glowing with happiness.
3. In comparison, her new teachers seemed less than thrilled to welcome her to class this morning. Their sad attempts at "hello" just did not stack up.
4. Here is the big one: This class is full of poor kids. Mia goes to a very expensive daycare, and in all her other years, she has been with kids who can afford to attend this place. In theory, I've always lamented the lack of diversity. But for 4-year-olds, there is a state-funded program that allows poor kids to attend preschool for free. Our center gets that state funding, and it mixes the subsidized kids half-and-half with the paying kids. So you end up with classrooms that are half poor minority kids who have never been to school before, and half privileged kids who know all the ins and outs of circle time. You can tell who the poor kids are just by looking at a list of the kids' first names. In class, they're the ones crying their eyes out or stomping away from the circle saying "No! No!" They are noticeably different, and Mia told me yesterday morning that she didn't like the new "black-haired" friends. Oh my. I quickly let her know that it was "not OK" to judge anyone based on the way they look, that we're all the same on the inside, that some of the kids just aren't used to school the way she is. But I doubt that my words can touch that innate sense, which I can't help feeling either, despite all my best intentions, that these kids are not of our world. I am a firm believer in public schools and busing and whatever else it takes to keep our schools integrated and make sure that poor children have a fair shot at life. But watching your innocent 4-year-old be thrown into a world tainted by racism and poverty is hard. Mr. SOC, another staunch believer in public education, pointed out that, unlike public school, we are paying more than $10,000 a year for Mia to attend this daycare. Doesn't that give us the right to shelter her for just one more year? I know the right answer to that question, the answer my conscience dictates. And honestly, when I dropped her off this morning, all the kids seemed to be doing fine. It seemed like a happy little preschool classroom. And I trust that her new teachers know what they're doing, and that this year will go well. I don't know why I felt so sad leaving her there. I guess that's just life.

I realize I'm taking a risk in talking so openly about race and class here. But I really believe that, if we could all talk a little more openly, we might be able to make faster progress on these issues.

Acts of faith

I suddenly feel that there are so many millions of things in the world to write about, and I could just write volume after volume about anything and nothing and everything. But for today, I just wanted to say that I realized I've been writing on this blog for close to two years now. And for much of that time, it has felt a bit like shouting into the void. I have only a tiny number of readers, largely because I am very scared of being outed here. I have told only three of my friends about this place, along with Mr. SOC, who I don't think bothers to read. (Correct me if I'm wrong, honey.) My handful of loyal readers is precious to me, but they are really a very small handful.

But for some reason, my lack of readership has never discouraged me in the slightest. I have enjoyed writing here, whether anyone reads it or not. In a way, I see it as an act of faith. Faith that just writing the words was enough. Faith that I didn't need approval or popularity or anything else. All I needed was a blank slate, a place for things to emerge. And something has emerged. Not anything that I can put into words just yet. For now, I'll just say that I'm so happy to be here, groping around in the dark, writing just for the love of it.

Could someone please give me a coherent argument about why princesses suck?

As I type this, a Disney princess balloon is floating over my head. An Ariel costume lies on the coffee table. On the bathroom counter sits an Ariel toothbrush (which turns on when you press a raised bump on her chest). And in the closet is a box of Disney princess stuff that I plan to use to adorn her birthday cake this Saturday. I bought all this stuff, and no one was pointing a gun at my head. What the fuck?

I seem to remember writing on this website, not that long ago, "I draw the line at buying Disney princess crap." Well, apparently my line was drawn in the sand. I can't even pinpoint a moment when I said, OK, I've changed my mind about the princesses. I just started thinking about what Mia would like for her fourth birthday, which was yesterday, and I imagined the look of joy on her face when she saw the princess crap, and I went and bought it. Or maybe I imagined the look of disappointment when she saw that there was no princess crap, and that was my motivating factor. Because, for months and months, she has been asking for a princess birthday party and talking about her princess cake and telling my mother specifically that she wants a Tinkerbell toy. (Is it possible that the new Disney fairy crap is even worse than the princess crap? Yes, I think it is.) So I think that having her birthday with no Ariel or Belle or Tinkerbell would have been a flat-out declaration that, no, dreams do not come true. Not even when you're four, and all it takes to make your dream come true is $50 worth of crap from Target. Suck that, kid.

I've tried to explain to Mia once or twice why princesses are not all that great. "They don't really do much," I said. "They don't work or do things to help the world. They just sit around and wait for a man to marry them." Mia didn't seem to have any understanding of why this was a bad thing. And then, seeing that I seemed set against princesses, she suggested that she could change her career aspiration to fairy. Sigh. This exchange made me see that even I was not sure exactly what is bad about the princesses. I just know that all of us Whole Foods-shopping types sneer at them, and think that of course our children will be more original or authentic than to walk around with a buxom mermaid painted on her shirt.

But what really is wrong with the princesses? They all seem like good people, polite and devoted to their fathers, interested in reading and exploring the world, ready for adventure, loving and able to sustain close friendships. No, they never have any mothers, and no one knows why, but we can't blame them for that, can we? Really, the idea of transforming from a mermaid to a human, and all that's entailed, is fascinating--and I think it has taken Mia's imagination in new directions. Some of the movies suck, but some of them are actually good films. Beauty and the Beast? A wonderful musical. Is it just that they're so ubiquitous? Is it that they're so homogenous? So skinny and busty and typical of our impossible standard of beauty? Is it that they reinforce stereotypical gender roles? Yes, they do all those things, but so do lots and lots of other children's toys and television shows and, really, everything in our culture.

Part of me hates what has become of Mia. Obsessed with pink and dresses and sparkly shoes and princesses. I feel like a failure for somehow letting it seep in, for giving in to it and, now, for encouraging it. I mean, there must be a way to keep it out. Look at Juniper. She is reprimanding other kids for their love of princesses. Surely, she didn't get an Ariel costume for her birthday. I wonder if I am helping Mia close her mind to all the different ways to be a woman in this world, encouraging her to believe that its all about beauty and glitz, planting the seeds of impossible dreams of a happily ever after kind of life. The other part thinks, for christ's sake, she is four. She's into princesses, and it makes her happy to have shiny pink things, ans what is the big fucking deal. A zillion kids go through this stage, and you don't see all the 20-year-olds walking around in pink sequined gowns. This will pass, and to resist it will only give it more power.

I've written all this and I'm no closer to a conclusion than I was before. All I know is that Mia was pretty damned happy when she put on that Ariel costume, and I think she would run away from home if the cake at her party this weekend arrived princess-free. So I guess I've made my choice without making one at all.

All that worrying for nothing

Oh, so this is what people mean when they say "vacation." They don't mean rushing from place to place, trying to have new experiences. They mean staying in a luxury home in view of the breakers, strolling from beach to pool to hot tub, throwing your kid into a pile of 4-year-olds while you drink beer on the deck, reading novels in bed and occasionally getting ambitious enough to take a trip to the ice cream shop. I used to say that I didn't understand what you were supposed to do at the beach. Now I know. You are supposed to learn what it's like not to do anything, not to be rushing from here to there, not to have any ambition at all other than to watch the surf and dig in the sand and take your child for a swim.

All of my hopes and not a single one of my fears were realized during this trip. I was able to use this vacation as a sort of meditative experience, a place where I could let go of all my usual worries.  Time seemed to stretch out into a smooth expanse, completely free of the ceaseless rushing and dilemmas that plague my ordinary days. I didn't worry about what we were going to eat or our schedule for the day. I ignored the imperfections of this place where we chose to vacation and the annoying tics of some our housemates. I made new friends and babysat children I barely knew and felt myself part of an extended, if very temporary, family.

Every time I caught myself stressing about what we should do next--should we go to the lighthouse tomorrow morning? And when are we going to fit in that nature walk?--I was able to stop myself, to remember that life is lived in this moment, not the next. I remembered to enjoy the simplest of pleasures: the feeling of being freshly showered after a long day in the sun and sand, of the surf rushing under my feet, watching dune grass sway in the breeze and eating lunch beside the pool. I swam and read and walked and sat and played and ate and drank and remembered what it is to simply be here, in this place and time.

I know, of course, that this week was a luxury afforded by the work and stresses of the rest of my life. But I hope I can take a little bit of it with me: The knowledge that you really can let go of it all, and the world continues to spin on its axis, the people you love go on living, you all find something to eat and a place to sleep. I can rest. Everything really is OK.

Dear Mia,

Tonight, after finishing dinner, your dad and I were lingering at the table over glasses of wine. We could hear you playing in the next room, talking to your babies and busily plotting your next move. Your dad said, "I think she's a happy child." And just at that moment, you came out of your playroom naked, marching and beating a toy drum in your own personal parade. If my whole life was leading up to this moment, it is enough.

Love,
Mommy

A Happy Marriage, by Rafael Yglesias

What a wonderful and true meditation on marriage. This is the story of a man whose wife is dying of cancer after 30 years of marriage. It tells the tale of her illness and death intermingled with the story of their courtship and their struggles as a couple. They went through the stages that many couples experience, that first infatuation, the stressed and sexless years of having young children, the more settled time of middle age. Just after they had their first child, he had a passionate affair and came very close to leaving his wife and his child. But he decided to stay, less out of love than out of obligation, and in the end he decided the reward of married life and fatherhood far outweighed the passion of that love affair. 

No, they never recaptured their first passion and his wife was always a bit of a mystery to him. He spent too much of their marriage obsessed and pouting about his failed career as a novelist. They both missed a million chances to be more generous, more open, more forgiving with one another. And it was only when she was diagnosed with cancer, he admits, that he could finally be sure that he still loved her. Before that, he didn't know anymore whether what he felt was just familiarity and routine, or whether it was genuine love. 

But despite all of it, they had a happy marriage. They made each other better people. They had a deep and enduring respect for one another. They were partners, family, in the truest sense of the word. They raised children, conferred over every decision, made one intertwined life together. They had a union far deeper than any love affair, and it endured until the moment of her very unromantic death. Though we all like to think of marriage as a long romance, I think this is the truer picture of how a marriage endures the ages. 

Is it possible to fail at vacation?

Hello from vacationland. I am in the first of two weeks of vacation/furlough, and this is the week where I get to live my dream of being a stay-at-home mom with the benefit of full-time child care. This is truly the life I fantasize about. But can I confess something? I have no idea what to do with myself. That's not to say that I am bored--far from it. Instead, my brain is buzzing with all the possibilities, making list upon list of things that need to be done. I think the best way to describe my state of mind is confused. What am I supposed to be doing with this precious, precious gift of time by myself? Should I be relaxing on the couch with a good book? Cooking gourmet meals? Cleaning and organizing my house? Packing for our beach trip? Preparing for Mia's birthday party? Taking her out of school and spending quality time? What is the right thing?

As a result of my confusion, I'm trying to squeeze all those things in, and so I make lists upon lists of the things I need to do, and then end up paralyzed by all that needs to be done. So I just spent the past hour watching the Colbert Report on the laptop, and now I'm totally behind on my plans for the day (which include stuff like reading, knitting, straightening the house, washing the blanket on our bed, doing laundry for the beach trip and AAAAHHHH, I can't think about it all.) My brain just cannot seem to accept that life is always a work in progress, that there are always going to be things on the to do list. Instead, I keep trying to make the complete list. I have this crazed idea that if I could just get everything on the list, then I could eventually cross it all off and then, only then, I could find peace. So when I think of another thing that needs to go on the list, no matter how trivial, I become instantly anxious. Because every new thing I add to the list is another obstacle between me and the peace I seek. I rush through each task, because I am in a race with the list. Hurry up that workout, no dawdling at the store, finish that novel because there's another one on the stack, go, go, go.

Last night, the buzzing of the to-do's got so loud that I just couldn't relax. No matter what I did, my brain kept going over and over the list, thinking about what I needed to do and when I would do it. It was like a skipping record or something, and I couldn't unstick it. Of course, I had trouble sleeping. And now I am sluggish and feeling like a real failure at vacation. Aren't I supposed to become gradually more relaxed as the week goes by? Instead, I am becoming more and more keyed up. What I really need is a vacation from myself.

Paula, by Isabel Allende

"I get into my car and drive away from the town toward the hills; almost blindly, I reach the forest where I go to walk, the haven where I so often come to be alone and think. I plunge into the woods along paths made rough with winter's debris. I run, tripping over branches and rocks, pushing through the saturated greenery of this vast bosky space, so like the forests of my childhood, the ones I crossed through on muleback, following behind my grandfather. My feet are heavy with mud and my clothes are dripping and my soul is bleeding, and as it grows dark, and when finally I can go no farther after walking and stumbling and slipping and getting up to flounder on, I drop to my knees, tear my blouse, ripping off buttons, and with my arms opened into a cross and my breast naked,
I scream your name, Paula."
—Isabel Allende

My terrible reading drought is so, so over. This book was incredible. Isabel Allende wrote it when her daughter fell into a coma at 29. It is a memoir of her own life, written at her daughter's bedside through a year of horrible struggle for life. Her story is simply fascinating. Allende grew up in Chile, the child of an eccentric and well-known, but not very happy, family. She fled her country when it was overthrown by a violent dictator in 1973, becoming first an exile in Venezuela and then an immigrant in California. In this book, she tells the story of her life, which includes an amazing career that took her from secretarial work, to fluff television reporting, to being a school administrator to becoming, wholly unexpectedly, a novelist. It also includes tales of sexual abuse, abandonment by her father, stormy love affairs, a difficult divorce and a period during which she abandoned her children.

But the book is about so much more than her life. It illuminates the beauty and culture of South America, and how much was lost when so many of its countries fell to dictatorships and violence, scattering its people to the wind. It is an artfully written manifesto on love, between man and woman and, of course, between mother and child. It seemed the ultimate reassurance that, no matter how flawed a relationship between a mother and child, no matter how many years and other relationships have separated the two, that primal love that a mother feels for her child is never lost. It is a love for the ages, that enriches our world and our lives just by existing, even though it opens us to terrible hurt.

Perhaps most importantly to me, it was a book about finding a path in life. Allende is a very famous and talented novelist. But she did not get there through striving and pushing herself; she didn't put herself on the 10-year-plan to become a novelist, crossing off items on her to-do list along the way. She describes herself as a sort of mystic, stumbling through life with few plans, letting the voices of the spirits speak through her. She wrote her first novel when she was past 40. It started as a letter to her dying grandfather, and the way she describes it, she was simply taken over by the story and its characters. She says she wrote one short story while stopped in traffic; it just blew through her like a gust of wind and she wrote it down. She never knew, and probably still doesn't, where she is going. She simply opened herself and let the power of the universe take over. This is reassuring to me, because I have come to feel that, if I'm ever going to move forward in my life, it's going to be this way. Maybe there are some people who can develop a formula for succcess and, through discipline and hard work, realize their dreams. But for me, every attempt to push myself forward leads to a brick wall. So now I'm just trying to make myself light and bouyant, ready to be carried by the next gust of wind.

It ain't easy taking a luxury vacation at the beach

Several months ago, I did something extremely out of character. I signed us up to take a group vacation with a bunch of people we hardly know. In a couple short weeks, we will be taking up residence with four other couples, and their many, many children, in a beach mansion for a week. All told, there will be ten adults and nine children, all but one of preschool age, in this house. As the vacation approaches, I am starting to wonder what the hell I was thinking. I think it had something to do with the fact that, at the time our neighbors invited us along, we were watching some TV series about a bunch of married swingers in the 70s. While I wasn't inspired to experiment in that way, it did give me the vague idea that we needed more friends, more social interaction, and that achieving that goal would probably require me to loosen my controls a bit and take more chances.

So here I am, about to embark on a vacation where many, many things will be out of my control. And despite all efforts to talk myself down, I am starting to twist myself into knots about this thing. When I really think about the factors that are stressing me out, I realize that I am being ridiculous. (I also realize that I lose all claims to describing myself as "laid back.") But after waking this morning and immediately starting in with racing thoughts about what size container of milk we should bring, and the expense of buying half-gallons vs. gallons, and whether other children would steal our juice boxes, I think I need to lay this all out and try to get a grip. So here goes, a glimpse into the mind of someone who really, really likes to control her own environment.

Disclaimer: Please understand that I am sharing the thoughts that keep running through my head, but that I do not believe these concerns to be rational or even ethically sound. I realize that some of these things make me sound selfish, although I think that they are mostly about control:

• Which bedroom we will get. This is probably my biggest source of heart palpitations. There are five adult bedrooms in this house. One is a king room with a jacuzzi tub, three are queens with attached bathrooms and one, according to my close reading of the house's website, is a queen without attached bathroom. Now, I have no dreams of getting the king room. But I live in mortal fear of getting that one without the bathroom. It's not so much that it would be the end of the world if we had to walk out into the hall to go to the bathroom, it's more the injustice of it all. We all paid equally, and this inequity in bedrooms was never discussed. I fear that if we get stuck with that bedroom, I won't be able to stop myself from spending the week quietly resentful. I had developed a plan to avoid this scenario, which involved us camping at the beach the night before the rental starts and being the first ones to the house. But I found out last night that none of us can get in the house until 4 p.m. So everyone's going to be there by then, and then what happens? We run in, shoving each other out of the way, trying to grab the best bedrooms? I assume that what happens is a more polite version of this. The thought of this scenario actually makes my chest tighten.
• What we will eat. There are five families and one kitchen. What if there is a line to get in the kitchen and cook dinner? What if all our food doesn't fit in the fridge? What if people take our food? How much food should we bring from home, considering that there is not infinite cabinet and fridge space? But if we buy it there, the prices are sure to be double because it's a resort area. What if people steal our beer??? What if other kids take our juice boxes and snack foods? These are high value items that we don't normally buy, and we can't afford to be keeping nine kids in juice boxes. Should we keep a cooler in our room with our most precious items? Should we label our foods to avoid confusion? No, that would make us look like complete assholes. We can avoid all this by eating out most nights, but we are not exactly flush with cash at the moment. How much should we allot for eating out? What if my stepson comes and brings a friend for part of the time. Then I'll be trying to cook for five in a crowded kitchen, and can we afford to go out to eat with that many people? Excuse me, my head just exploded. 

• The children. Nine children, people. NINE. Mia knows one of these children, and they play wonderfully together. But what is the dynamic going to be with nine? What if the friend, who knows several of the other children, dumps Mia and she spends the week as the pathetic outsider? (I have seen this scenario before, and it's not pretty.) What if the children run around in a crazed pack all week, turning the entire home into a Lord of the Flies scenario? What if other children are eating candy bars and drinking soda, and Mia demands to do it too? What if some people allow their children to stay up late, shouting and watching TV, making bedtime miserable for us?

OK, time to bring the sane part of my brain back into the picture. As you can see, the crazy part is  getting the best of me here. Here is the reality of this trip: The house is huge. It has three stories and seven bedrooms, including two basement children's rooms. It has a pool and a hot tub, a giant deck, a rec room with pool table, and is within very close walking distance of the beach. It is essentially a luxury hotel with shared kitchen and living areas. If the living room is crowded, we can move to the rec room or the deck, or the pool, or the covered patio, or to our room. If the house is too chaotic, we can go to the beach, visit a lighthouse or pony sanctuary, go hiking or kayaking, take a daytrip to another town. If people share our food, we'll share theirs and it will all even out. If the kitchen is crowded, we can have a snack and eat a bit later, or we can cook on the grill. If we spend a few hundred dollars eating out, it's not going to put us in the poor house. We have plenty of savings to cover a little vacation entertainment. If people are making noise at Mia's bedtime, we can turn on the white noise machine and be firm with her. She'll get the idea after a couple days.  And if we get the shitty bedroom ... Well, it's really up to me whether I spend my vacation angry over the horrible injustice of having to use a bathroom in the hall. I'll try to get one of the other bedrooms, as politely as possible, but if the worst happens, it's really not that bad.

This vacation is inflaming all my deepest neuroses. And part of me is thinking I've made a huge mistake, that this is vacation, it's supposed to be fun, and choosing to do something that pushes all my buttons was utterly stupid. But I'm going to choose to look at this a different way. I'm going to see it as an opportunity for personal growth. Can I release my grip on the controls for a week? Can I live without a meal plan? Can I deal with each day, each moment, as it comes? Can I sit and read a book without worrying what's next on the schedule? Can I let go of worries about money and indulge in a few vacation treats, accepting that while my pay is reduced, we are are still solidly middle class people who can afford a vacation? If we get the shitty bedroom, can I accept it as a karmic repayment for the time I took the better bedroom on a beach trip with friends? Can I be generous, rather than trying to lay claim to what's mine? Can I accept that other people's wants and needs are as valid as my own, and those of my family? Can I breathe, relax and let go of all this stuff that really doesn't matter? Right now, I am issuing this challenge to myself. I want to make this a vacation from my self-centered need for control.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Dear Mia,

When I was pregnant with you, I was terrified of the ways you would change my life. I remember sitting at lunch with my boss, talking about my fears. "I will never get to be alone with my husband again," I said, imagining an unwanted intruder. And I will always remember how he, a father of two girls, responded, because they were the wisest words I have ever heard about parenthood. Having a child, he said, is like falling in love again. What you lose in intimacy with your spouse, you gain 100 times over in the love affair you have with your child. The truth in those words nearly makes me cry.

I never imagined how much I could love you, how much I would want to share my life with you. I love the curve of your belly and the sheen of your dark hair. I love the joy in your face when you smile, and the sound of your voice squealing "Mommy!" as I arrive home from work. A few minutes ago, I heard you get out of bed and tromp to the bathroom, and I loved the sound of of your feet hitting the floor, even the sound of you peeing. I love that you are alive, running and laughing and sleeping and eating in my house. I don't know how I ever lived without this kind of love.

I love all your adorable mispronunciations. You cannot pronounce the sound "th," and so mother becomes "muller," weather becomes "weller." I love that, in our house, a place that is very dark is called "fardark." I love the way so many of your sentences start with the word actually ("Ack-sha-lee, I really know how to put on my own clothes."), and the way so many end with ... or something ("or sumsin'"). I even love the hint of teenage churlishness in your new question, "Why do you always ... ?" I love the way you tell me, "I love you, Mommy," dozens of times a day.

This past weekend, you miraculously learned to swim. After being terrified of putting your head under water or swimming without a floatie, you suddenly yanked that thing off and started going for it. As I watched you kicking and paddling, your whole body jerking side to side with the effort, your dark hair plastered to the top of your head, I was almost overwhelmed with love and pride. I went to a meditation retreat a few months ago, and at the end, our teacher chanted one phrase over and over: "All I ask of you, is to remember me, for loving you." That is all I ask of you, Mia. If you remember only one thing about your childhood, remember how much you were loved.

Love,

Mommy