Parenting

Scotty’s Lament

The Connells – Scotty’s Lament

Tonight I am taking my twelve-year-old daughter to her first concert (we have decided not to count the time we took her to see The Wiggles when she was almost three nor the time when she was six and staying with my sister who took her along to see Steel Pulse at an outdoor show, since she doesn’t remember either one). Another one of my sisters took her son to The Who for his first concert and friends have taken their kids with them to all manner of shows.

Before having kids, if I thought about it in the abstract, I imagined that I would influence my children’s tastes in music and they would be the coolest kids in school. For a while when they were very young, this was not far off the mark. I drove the car and controlled the stereo. I picked out the DVDs they watched and picked ones with soundtracks I liked (did you know there’s a surprising number of Ramones songs in Scooby-Doo movies?). But once they started taking the bus to school and hanging around with their peers, my music became something your parents listened to and not what they wanted to hear. I tried to bridge the gap for a while, making them CDs with songs I liked that got radio airplay, but currently there’s not a lot of crossover.

So tonight’s concert is my daughter’s favorite and I’m just accompanying her because she’s too young to go unsupervised. I am going to try hard not to embarrass her because I remember the one and only time I had a parent with me at a show.

I was in college in the Philadelphia suburbs and while I went to concerts in the city as often as I could, the last train left 30th St. Station right around midnight. If you missed it, you had to take an infrequent subway out through a rough neighborhood to the high speed line, which ran until 2am but only about once an hour. Most of the shows I went to were in theaters or sports stadiums because shows at clubs were always going to end after the last train. Every once in a while I could convince a friend with a car to come along but it was tough and the whole needing an ID or being 21 thing didn’t help.

This one time though, it just so happened that my dad was in Philadelphia for business and was staying at a hotel just two blocks from the Chestnut Cabaret. I had planned to meet up with a friend and her boyfriend to see The Connells there and now my dad was going to want to visit with me. I hemmed and hawed but finally decided to turn the situation to my advantage. His hotel room had two double beds so I figured we could hang out in the evening, have dinner, then I’d go to the show with my friends, stay overnight at the hotel with my dad, then we could do breakfast in the morning before his conference started. I didn’t expect him to say that he would want to come along. I tried to talk him out of it but it was just a club show, no seats, I don’t think I had bothered to get tickets in advance, so I couldn’t see how I could refuse to let him join us.

So dad and I went to see The Connells. He stayed at a table on the side with my friend’s boyfriend while the two of us hit the floor. He didn’t last all that long before the combination of age and business travel convinced him that he ought to head back to the hotel. I made my way to the hotel after the show and we spent the next morning hanging out before I headed back to campus.

What’s so embarrassing about that? It wasn’t at the show, it was the years afterward that I had to endure my dad bringing it up. The same exact sentences. “Remember that time we went to see, what was that band, oh yeah, The Con-nells (he always pronounced it as if it were two separate words)? And you two were down on the floor, I could only make out your heads bopping around from time to time so I left. Do you still go to see The Connells?” I am not kidding, for years, like ten, this same conversation took place every single time I spoke to him. Every.Time. If he was visiting and another person was around he would never miss the opportunity to regale them with the story about the time we went to a concert together. If I happened to tell him I was going to a concert he would immediately ask if I was going to see The Connells. (For the record, I saw them three times over the years, not the hundred and ten you would think if you listened to my dad.)

I spoke to my dad last weekend and mentioned that I was taking my daughter to a concert tonight. It’s been 25 years since that show so he doesn’t still remember the name of the band we saw but he started in, “Oh, I remember you used to go to concerts all the time.” I quickly changed the subject. Lesson learned. I will let my daughter be the one to remind me, if she wants to, about the time we went to a concert together.

This Summer

Superchunk – This Summer

Today was the last day of school for my daughter. Pretty late this year because of all the days school was cancelled due to the blizzard and hurricane Sandy. It’s the power outages that do us in.

Summer is, hands down, my favorite season. The only thing I don’t like about it is the increase in the size and number of insects. Every other thing I adore. Hazy, hot, and humid? Love it. Thunderstorms? Sure! The smells, sounds, tastes, and sights of summer are what I live for all winter long.

Think about all the summer fruits and vegetables. There’s just no comparison. I like root vegetables probably more than the next person (as a vegetarian, they’re kind of staples for much of the year) but I’d trade them all for a ripe garden tomato. I’m not much of a gardener myself, I don’t have the time, space, or inclination really, but I usually manage to have a couple of large containers with tomato plants and I hit up the farmer’s markets pretty regularly. Farm fresh corn on the cob, does it get any better?

When I was a kid we used to go up to Maine from suburban New York City for the entire month of July. We went to a little beach town where there were only a handful of year-round residents but dozens of returning summer families. Some owned houses and stayed the whole summer, others, like us, came for two weeks or longer and stayed in the same rental houses year after year. We had electricity but no tv (or any kind of electronic distractions), just lots of other kids, books, games, cards, the beaches, rocky coastline, boats, swimming holes, blueberry patches: heaven. It was truly idyllic. My mother would let us roam free, more or less, and we ran all over the place in our bare feet. I know that all of my siblings feel the same way I do and wish we could give our kids the same lazy, free, unplugged and fueled by your imagination kind of summers we had there. I’m sure we complained about being bored now and then but our memories are overwhelmingly positive.

I’m taking some time off from work and going to try to recreate some of that summer magic for my kids on a greatly reduced scale. We only have a week and a half before the summer camps kick in and there’s not much chance I”ll get them to give up their DS and iPod, but if the weather cooperates we’ll hit the beach, look for seaglass, skip rocks, ride bikes, and bask in the warm summer sun right up until their bedtime.

Talk About the Passion


R.E.M. – Talk About the Passion

It isn’t often that I’m tempted to think about the 1980s as a time of hope and promise. My high school and college years took place during the Reagan years and everything seemed bleak and hopeless. My first presidential election is a day I’d really rather forget but never will. It felt like the beginning of the end (and in some ways, it was).

The news of late has been pretty awful. We don’t have regular television service any more so I’m not even talking about the major network news outlets (most of which I’ve had trouble stomaching ever since Peter Jennings died). It just feels like everything that I read or that comes across my screens lately is more disgusting, baffling, frustrating, sickening, shocking—yet at the same time not shocking, that I start getting really depressed.

“Not everyone can carry the weight of the world.”  Trust me, I know. And I know what you’re thinking. “For fuck’s sake! Combien de temps?! Hmm, Harry Reid?” All those empty prayers, empty mouths. This song may not have anything to do with the issues I’m incensed about today but it’s bigger than a single issue, or two or three. I want to talk about the passion. I want to talk about working toward something better. About finding some passion and doing something about it.

Today, one good thing came across the wires. For a few moments, I was reminded of a wonderful person who made a difference in so many lives. I’m talking about Mister Rogers. Today, March 20, would have been his 84th birthday. Mister Rogers not only lived his mission but he talked about it. And when you first hear his voice, especially in a serious setting like testifying before Congress, you almost chuckle to yourself thinking about how quaint and simple he sounds. But the more he talks, the more you watch everyone else get quiet. They sit, and they listen. They listen to him say things like, “I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.” In 1969! Talking to Congress about tackling mental health on children’s television! Or the way that he gently, and without pointing fingers, takes all of the television industry to task in his Hall of Fame induction speech (the whole thing is at the link above but if you just want to cut to the chase it’s here). Watch it. Really.

The article about Mister Rogers I linked to in the paragraph above is two pages long and has several videos, but they aren’t all that long and I promise you they are all worth taking the time to watch, and to read how and why he and his words are still relevant. In the final video included in the article, he says, “I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead…” Yes, it is tough, and we have a lot of hard work to do, and Mister Rogers isn’t here any longer to help us do it. He carried the weight of the world while we went busily about our days. We need to pick up where he left off. We have to.

Maybe it’s unfair to hold up Mister Rogers or bands like R.E.M. as examples of how we can take what we’re passionate about and try our best to spread the word and educate and inform people without getting mad or preachy. I guess I’m just hoping that we can remember those lessons and not get too discouraged. If there’s one thing I learned from the Reagan/Bush era it’s perseverance. It hurts and it’s demeaning to lose. But I, for one, need to look back at where I’ve been, what has been important to me, what helped me get through difficult times. This helps.

{If you’re wondering why I chose this early live video instead of the black and white one set to the studio track that would seem to fit perfectly, it’s because I couldn’t find a version of that without an ad and this time, I really felt like I didn’t want to subject people to a possible football ad.}

Once in a Lifetime

Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

And you may ask yourself, how do I work this?
And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?

Every once in a while, I find myself feeling this way. Am I really an adult responsible for raising two children? Am I really supposed to know all the things the other parents seem to know like, what makes an acceptable contribution to the golf-themed gift basket (?!) for my second grader’s school fund raiser? I feel like David Byrne, hitting his head over and over again. Surely I missed some vital information along the way here. I’m the person who decides what we’re all having for dinner (and has to make it)? How the hell did that happen? The family is counting on me to keep a roof over out heads and large automobiles in the driveway? What?!

You may ask yourself, am I right am I wrong?
You may say to yourself, my god what have I done?

The doubt creeps in during those quiet moments. When the sixth grader’s science homework question (water dissolving) suddenly has me unsure of everything I thought I knew. Crap! I forgot all this stuff after the test! I thought we were never supposed to need to know it anymore! I’ve been entrusted with making sure two whole people become thoughtful, intelligent members of society?! Shit! You know, it was easy when they were babies, I thought, I’ve got this. Teach them to walk, write their names, ride a bike, no problem. The discipline wasn’t too hard, teaching what’s good and what’s bad was pretty cut and dried. As they’ve gotten older though, there is much that is hard to define and I look at them sleeping and think, ooof. We have not even hit the teenage years yet.

Same as it ever was, Same As It Ever Was!

I’m sure this is nothing new. I’m sure my mother had no idea when she was 23 and had my oldest sister, what lay in store for her. I think most people who contemplate having children tend to think about babies, toddlers, young school-aged children. My kids are still young but I can see what’s just on the other side and I remember what kind of trouble teenagers can get into. My high schools resembled Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Most of us made it out just fine, but not everyone. How much of that is luck and how much is shaped by what I’m doing now? Letting the second grader take his Skylander figure to school is not a decision that’s going to alter the universe much. Letting the sixth grader start to go places on her own and unsupervised gets a little harder. By the time we get to learning to drive I am sure I will have an ulcer.

Time isn’t holding us, time isn’t after us
Letting the days go by, letting the days go by

It’s good that this all happens really slowly over months and years. It isn’t really just Once in a Lifetime. There are days when you might wish for the current phase to be over and to have only existed that one time. Like colic. But by now you know that whatever you’re currently dealing with will pass, there will be a little lull and then the next challenge will crop up. Until then, you just have to let the days go by, into the blue again. Dancing may help.

A Sort of Homecoming

U2 – A Sort of Homecoming

Back in the early-mid 80s, I was not much of a U2 fan. I didn’t have to be to still know all their songs. I always had a friend who was a devoted follower so you’d hear them no matter what. I admit at the time, I didn’t really pay a lot of attention. I bought The Unforgettable Fire at some bargain bin sale a few years ago. When I put it on I was instantly transported back to cold bus rides home from high school football games (I was in the band).

Those dark, frigid days have been on my mind lately as we had a blizzard last weekend that dropped about 20″ of snow and knocked our power out. That wasn’t really a surprise, it happens every time a hurricane comes around. The difference is hurricanes usually occur in warmer months and lose their steam as they head north so the last couple of times, I’ve taken the kids up to my mother’s in Maine to ride it out. We’d lose power at home and my husband would stick around in the area to assess any damage and let us know when it was safe to come back. It’s been nice to have that refuge though I’ve felt a little guilty about just escaping the worst of it and waltzing back in when everything is comfortable again. I’m not going to feel bad about that any more.

Heading north wasn’t going to help us escape a blizzard (and sure enough my mother got buried, snow up to the door handle) so we stayed put. I had left the heat up a little higher than usual, made the kids take their showers early, found the flashlights and was just finished making dinner when the lights first began to flicker. We managed to finish eating but didn’t get the dishes done before the power went out. I played a board game with the kids, we read some books, then went to bed early. My seven-year-old was scared so I let him sleep in with me and my husband took the futon. I’m not used to going to bed that early so I was awake for a while in the middle of the night using a little of my precious battery power on my phone to see how others were making out.

It was 52 degrees inside the house when we woke up. Bearable but chilly. We made a tent in the playroom and lined it with blankets and pillows to try and trap some heat in. I went out in search of coffee and to see if anyone in the neighborhood had power.

icywires
See those wires? Coated with inch thick ice and hanging ridiculously low. I knew we’d be in for another cold night as I didn’t see any plows or power company equipment anywhere. The kids were being good sports about it all, even when their iPod and Nintendo DS ran out of power. We played some more board games (note to self, buy new games you can stand to play more than once), ate cold pasta, cereal, whatever anyone found palatable at the new room temperature was fine with me.

With the sun down it got cold, fast. Both kids piled into the bed with me and we took turns reading aloud by flashlight, gloves and hats on to keep the parts out of the covers from getting too cold. It reminded me of the first year we moved up to Maine. Our house in NY hadn’t sold so we were living in rented houses, the first one an unheated summer cabin which we stayed in until Thanksgiving. My sister and I shared a room, wearing two layers of pajamas and socks, mittens and hats to bed. My mother and younger sister shared a single bed, with the cat on top, just to keep warm. We survived that, have some really great inside jokes and stories we can tell, this is going to be fine, I told myself.

Because of the cold or the early bedtime, I woke up again in the middle of the night. I thought back to those days in the unheated house. As a teenager, it was something to be gotten through, put up with, grumble about. I’m sure I never gave any thought to what my mother was going through, teenagers aren’t known for their great empathy with their parents after all. Now I am the mother and I was responsible for making sure we did all survive it fine with nothing more than a good story to tell. Things sure look different from this side of the fence. The temperature in the morning was down to 42F. We were in the midst of getting ready to pack up and head to a friend’s house when the power company called with an anticipated restoration of power for 2pm. Phew! And thanks, Mom, for the grace I never even knew you were showing under all that pressure.

Kids

MGMT – Kids

It’s a Saturday night and I’m spending it at the hospital with my daughter. She seems to be doing much better now; after four days with a stomach bug she was getting dehydrated and looked just pitiful.

This song is my ringtone when my daughter calls me. She just started middle school in a different town with a long bus ride so getting her a phone seemed like a good idea. She mostly just texts though.

When you think about having kids, people talk about babies, the sleepless nights, diapers, feeding, maybe they go so far as to talk about vaccines. But no one says, holy hell, you are not going to believe how often they are sick and when it gets bad, you will never be more scared.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

My 5th grader told me this evening that she used some of my deodorant this morning. I didn’t see that one coming. I guess her teacher has been complaining that when they all come back to class after gym, they’re a bit ripe. Today was gym class and she didn’t want to be smelly. Cue Nirvana.

I told her that when we’re at the store next, we’ll get her some deodorant of her own. I wonder if they still make Teen Spirit.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)