The most important thing

I grew up in a household that prided itself on the emotional distance that prevailed among family members. I can recall my mother actually telling me that she was very proud of the fact that we were all so independent, she, my brother, my father and me, that we were "just four people who happen to live in the same house."

She felt this way because she had grown up in a family that used emotion as a bludgeon and family ties as a garrotte. Battered and strangled emotionally, she sought to create a family that chose to love each other. Her legacy is a family that never communicates at all, because without that common roof, we seem to have nothing in common, to the extent that it takes conscious effort to remember that I have a birth family at all, let alone cousins, and uncles and aunts.

And inadvertantly, I seem to have repeated the pattern, marrying into a family that mistrusts strong emotion. In contrast to the lack of emotional communication, myown strong emotion seems a pathology. I talk to other parents whose children have left, and they speak of phone calls their children have made-- I can count on one hand the times my son has picked up the phone to call me since he left home for college, and I believe the count is never for his having called just to talk, rather than for a birthday or to report specific news.

You cannot undervalue the importance of the people who share your memories. Losing your birth family is like losing yourself, your childhood. It is hard to recreate a family anew with each generation; you'll just be a skiff on an unknown ocean, without anchor, port, or origin.

"I just want my children to be happy."

Even the most ambitious stage mother will use this line when confronted with the question of what she wants for her children. But as I move through my day, from job to job to job (yes, I have three), where my insights, suggestions and expertise all appear to exist in a vacuum where I have no credibility and must re-prove myself with each new idea (never, sure, you've looked into this, we can try that), I think what I really want is for my children to matter.

I come at this because I think that I just don't matter. What I think, whether I push for an idea or let it go, it doesn't matter. The bosses will be happier for not having to deal with me, and really I have such a small life, my changes to one minuscule corner of the world is not exactly going to solve famine in Africa.

But it makes me very unhappy, this idea that no matter how I've proved myself in the past, or how much experience I have what I say doesn't matter. No one cares what I think. I want people to care what my children think. I want them to know that people care what they think. I don't care if their lives are small, or how they or the world measures their material success, but I want them to know that they have mattered in someone's life.

Why didn't I ever think of that

The best hallowe'en costume I ever heard of:'


Reverse trick-or-treat.

Could my kid do that?

We saw the show High Fidelity last night. Because my son has sort of fallen into "MDing" (that's lingo, folks! "Musical Direction") for theaters, I immediately, of course, project a career for him that inevitably ends with a Tony. I have no idea if he has any amibitions in this direction. Right now I think he's just thrilled to be actually earning a living making music.

It's a hazard for parents. Everything your child tries becomes the thing that will make them famous. It's the tendency that creates Stage Mothers and other monsters of the household. One's belief in the exceptionality of one's children is so entrenched that it becomes impossible to believe when they are not the ones who get the gig, the deal, the contract, the prize.

Sunday mornings the local NPR station always ends the 9 a.m. broadcast with some young musician or actor or writer who has just "made it" on their amazing talent. Often I'll listen and think "my kid is better than that" (we will not discuss the truth of this statement. As a parent, I take it on faith). And then, equally inevitably, you discover that the kid's stepmother is Carly Simon's sister, or their summer place was next door to Norman Mailer. Not that this helped-- they did it on sheer talent. Uh huh.

Still, I believe. This will be the generation that makes it on talent, so the next generation can make it on connections. Meanwhile, back to the rolodex. Who do we know?....

Too much information?

So, have I stepped over the line?

Protecting Your Child's Privacy

Not my kid

When my mother was a little younger than me, she had friends, I realize now, about my age, or a little older. I never thought about it at the time, that these “adults” were so young. In fact, I had a student teacher my senior year of high school with whom I also worked. At work, she was “Dori.” At school, “Miss Starr.”

Now I seem to have collected a whole set of friends the ages of my children. And yet, in Chinese generational fashion, I associate my children’s 20something friends with their generation, and my own 20something friends with my generation, or at least, I identify them with the “adults” and not with the “kids.”

Context is so crucial to identity. Meeting a 23-year-old at work as a colleague or even subordinate, you still put them into the “adult” category. Meeting them as your son’s friend from college puts them into the “kid” category. With the “kids”, I indulge and maybe condescend (I hope not, but who knows how I come across?). With the “adults” I relate and talk about “adult” things. (How are they different? I don’t know.) I have to keep reminding myself that they are ALL adults, if still young and unformed. Some of my own young friends would get on like a house afire with my kids, but introducing them is awkward, like trying to get your daughter to date your best friend’s cousin’s son.

Remember me

It's been a month for reunions. The return of my daughter from overseas, high school reunion, virtual reconnection with lost friends, and lunch with my father after 13 years very nearly sans communication. This is the stuff of memoir, the navel-gazing contemplation of past love; literature is dense with it and my trite musings probably won't add much to the conversation. What I am feeling is so profound that I do not know if I can express it-- the thoughts are deep in my reptile brain-- touch me, hold me, know me, remember me, keep me. In fact, then, perhaps this is not an occasion for essay, but one for haiku. The brief to encompass the vast.

I met you again
In the place we knew before.
Do you remember?

Dedicated to the Class of '73