Non Issues

They say Sarah Palin is causing the Mommy Wars to boil over into soccer fields and grocery store aisles. I can't imagine what people are getting so worked up over. Yeah, she's got five kids and she works, but does anyone really believe that she gets up and throws a load of wash on, cleans up the cat vomit, and empties the dishwasher? I don't.

I took all the feminist lit classes in college. In fact, though it's worth nearly nothing, I had a double major in Women's Studies. During my first pregnancy, I put in for a two week leave, figuring I would just find the kid a babysitter. I had someone in mind midway between Dr. Seuss and Mary Poppins. The kid would be just fine.

Of course, I had zero experience with infants; I had never babysat as a teenager (I edited papers instead), and I liked my job. He was going on formula, to daycare, and I was returning to full time work. After Christopher was born, I did none of those things. The entire world dropped away, and Christopher was the new center. I found becoming a mom the most life-altering experience possible.

But that's just me. I have friends who really DID return to work at the six week mark and they never looked back.

But here's the catch: Sarah Palin has help. Lots of it. I made my own baby food, scrubbed my own floors, and never once hired a babysitter. There just isn't time to tend to five kids and be a mayor if you don't have lots of help. There just isn't time to shower if you are taking care of five kids by yourself.

So what are people arguing about? I don't get it. The media is portraying this power mom as if she works around the clock, baking muffins and screaming at hockey matches,then coming home to grind wheat for her kids' muffins before passing a law about polar bears. Nobody in public office does what stay at home moms do because stay at home moms don't usually have a staff.

I won't even get into how much her political philosophy scares me. But I wanted to know what the kids thought, or if they had anything to say about her gender. They had never seen her before, and when I showed them her picture, my two boys commented that she looked "...like a regular mom" while my youngest looked at it and said, "She looks like the lady who sells the Lenscrafter glasses." None of them thought about whether or not she was raising kids or was male or female. Wouldn't it be great if everyone thought that way - then listened to the issues? Right now, it seems the biggest issue is gender and lifestyle choice, and that should have nothing to do with policy.

Of Ogres and New Beginnings

Ok, after all this talk of self mutilation and my (and every other mom's) worries about what, exactly, teenagers are going to find out there, my daughter unintentionally lightened the mood. She's not returning to school until mid-September due to construction on her building, so she has had plenty of time to think about what fifth grade might have in store.

"Are you scared?" Christopher asked her at dinner. "'Cause fifth grade stinks. It's when I first starting really hating school."

"I'm only scared of one thing," Emma, who is quite used to the drama of teen speak, said.

"Boys," Philip offered, "the ones who push."

"Nope. Worse."

We all looked up. Emma has had issues with boys in general, and the ones who push specifically. This has been her number one pet peeve since kindergarten.

"So what are you afraid of?" I asked, trying not to sound worried (you can imagine what was going through my head at that exact moment).

"Ogres," she responded matter-of-factly. "I am really, really scared of them."

"New Jersey doesn't have a whole lot of ogres," I reassured her. "At least, I've never seen one. I think they hate beaches."

Emma sighed. "Mom, it's not like you know who they are. They hide it. Remember that story we read, about the women who were witches but only in secret?"

(We had read the Roald Dahl story over the summer aptly titled, "The Witches")

"I remember."

"They can look just like you and me. Well," (and this really cracked her up), "not like ME, but maybe like you. That's the scary part. You just don't know who they are."

Ogres. I had almost forgotten about them.

When her brothers began smiling, Emma admonished them, "If you laugh at an ogre,or if you don't believe in them, they get mad, then they come after you first. I'm just going to walk right by them and not think anything. Nothing at all. I'm just going to go blank so they don't think anything when they see me. Then they can't get me."

At least she's got a plan.

Cutting Revisited

Blogs remind me of snapsnots, of short little conversations that I might hear on an elevator or in a waiting room. A lot of them are funny. I tend not to take blog reading or writing too seriously. But there are exceptions. My exception is the blog I wrote on cutting. It generated a few anonymous comments, and a lot of email from kids who cut and from kids who were trying not to cut.

Over the weekend, a teen told me there was to be a cutting party at a friend's house. One of my sons had been invited (he couldn't go because I did not know the parents and no one seemed to know if they would be home). She went on to say this wasn't the first cutting party she knew about.

Apparently, at a cutting party, you make a choice whether or not you want to participate. As I stood in the kitchen making snacks for the kids, I had to will myself to listen with an open mind. Here I was with multi grain organic chips and soda from the health food store trying not to notice the irony of my desire to keep them healthy and safe, and their desire to "experiment" -- I also know that not listening to teens, no matter how upsetting the story, only makes matters worse.

So you don't have to cut at a party like this. She said there's no pressure like that. The upsetting part is how accepted a behavior it is becoming: have something to eat, talk, cut, listen to music. I asked her if I had it right. She said I did. She also told me how a lot of girls had watched a BBC production of Princess Diana admitting to cutting her arms and legs. (But this behavior is also common in boys) I don't know whether that BBC taping normalized the behavior or not, but it's now making the myspace rounds.

I learned a lot from the teens who wrote to me about their experiences with cutting:
cutting is real, and cutting is spreading. And the behavior, even if it begins as an experiment, can quickly become a compulsion. The scariest aspect? The average age to begin cutting is currently between 9 and 10.

Quick! Happy Birthday!

On Monday, August 25, Emma turned ten. It's not a vast age, but while I was all excited about a trip to Toys R Us, she looked at me with her (then) nine year old patience, and announced, "Mom, I want a new computer, not toys. It's not like I'm five."

Right. She's not five, but she is only ten, and already her friends have laptops, cell phones and separate phones to text. One of her closest friends has a Blackberry.
She's ten and a half. I can't imagine what she enters on it: "Suite Life of Zach and Cody Saturday morn" or maybe just the week's spelling words.

In fairness, these are the kids who grew up with the Internet. None of them can remember a time when there weren't computers in the house, or when pictures took up to a week to get back from the developers. A few parents we know assist their children with blogs (remember diaries?) Their homework is online, they take keyboarding in second grade, and they are computer savvy by about the third grade.
Each year, along with nutritional guidelines, bus rules and field trip permissions, the Internet safety code comes home. Emma learned how to use a mouse and how to click on icons in kindergarten. She has only seen her teachers take attendance on computers that are now built in to teachers' desks.

So she got her laptop. She didn't want a party, just a family trip. For Christmas, she wants a cell phone, but she does think her friend's Blackberry is silly.

I can't imagine her opening a copy of Little Women or Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights and understanding that time. I look at most tween books, and I wonder if she will understand how life used to so much less immediate, so much less global.

Today, I answered my own question. Since she can only go on the Internet with someone present in the room (someone = older than 13), I have been watching her navigation. So far she has watched:

-a man claiming he can count to infinity

- a fashion show for dogs

- kittens (and more kittens, and yet more kittens)

- several episodes of a show involving a castle,a princess, and a witch

- music videos of bands she likes

When I asked her this morning what she liked best about her birthday, she replied,
"Two things: the wipeout (which is a water park slide) and the cake."

I don't think kids change; just their toys do. When I asked her about the laptop, she replied, "Oh, that's really just for homework so I don't have to borrow one of the boys."

Some of the Writing Questions

I am away at the Land of Make Believe (I kid you not -- my daughter's tenth birthday is this Monday, and she gets to pick the weekend trip), so I am sharing my Amazon blog here so I can go down water slides and disregard the laws of physics.

In June, I agreed to answer the questions of a junior/senior creative writing class, and I decided to do it as a blog. Be back Monday.

Ok, because the Summer Reading Project is due on September 3, I have taken a group of submitted questions related to writing and I will answer them in two mock interviews. This is the first one.
If you have a question you don't see here, I will answer it before the end of August (at the latest). I still have about six more questions on this.
And thanks for these -- some of the questions actually made me think more deeply about the whole process of writing.


Where do you get your ideas?

The idea for a novel usually germinates from a small scrap of information: it could be a scent in a coffee shop that reminds me of when I first started college, or of a friend's house, and a weird kind of association begins. A few days later, I'll remember that scent, or the particular way a tree looked in the yard, or a few words someone said to me, and a character kind of "appears" - I don't know anything about the character. Yet. I don't force anything. Little by little I begin to see the character more fully. So, to answer another question, it's not from thinking of one specific problem or conflict. It's much more from a character.


Do you have a writing schedule?


God no. I have three kids, five animals, a part time job, and a big house that's not fully unpacked from last year. It's more like I grab a few minutes here and there to work on a scene. Most of my writing time is granted through insomnia.


Do you write from drafts and revise?

Sort of. When I have down time, like waiting at my daughter's dance class or when everyone is still asleep, I write notes about the story I'm working on. Remember when your English teacher freaked about sentence fragments? That's what I use. The notes will say -- "S. goes nuts b/c no friends call." Of course, sometimes I look at these notes a day or two later and say, "What on earth did I mean by this? And who's S?"


Do you consider yourself a serious writer?

Yup. Absolutely. I kid around a lot, but in spite of a really busy life, I always manage to write because it's really important.


Why did you pick YA as your genre?


Because I, like thousands of adults, am still secretly in recovery from all the damage middle school inflicts. I can revisit that time in life and change everything.


Are you working on a new book? Is it YA also?


Yes and yes.


Do you want to write a book that is not YA?


I am also working on a middle grade/tween novel.


Some writers say that dialog is the hardest thing to write. Do you agree?

For me, dialog is pretty easy. I live with and work with teenagers so I hear my characters' dialog all the time. What is hard for me is to keep track of the scenes because I sometimes write them out of order. I have to make sure everything goes together seamlessly so it's not snowing in the beginning of chapter six and they end up at the beach two days later. That would probably be noticed by readers.


What is the most memorable thing anyone ever said to you about The Shape of Water?


It seems that I am getting more and more email about this book each day, so this might change, but it had to be from a lady who called herself "A Mom" -- she wrote that she had purchased the book due to its "pretty name and lovely cover" and she did not realize the book was about an arsonist.
Now, Magda is attracted to fire, and yes, she does set a few, but an arsonist has a sinister implication that I think is too weighty for a fifteen year old girl. Anyway, this lady went on and on about how awful it was that I wrote about an arsonist and made her my main character. She went on to say what a terrible example I was setting for teenagers.
And here's the thing: my dad really was a New York City fireman, and I heard about teenage arsonists all the time. It's not like me writing about teen arson CREATES arson. It's been around forever, and it probably will be around forever. Books have to reflect what we do as human beings.
That was a pretty weird rant, but I must say, most people write lovely things.

A Few Minutes With The Boys or Why I Like Talking to Teens So Much

Last night, a warm Saturday, I told my boys that they had a choice: they could work on their summer reading projects or they could go for a ride to the harbor with me. I hate to admit this, but it was a toss up.

But since my boys were read to prenatally, grew up in a book-stuffed house with almost no television interaction, had a mom who read to them as often as she fed them, they ditched the reading. (Have I mentioned before how upset I am that they don't read? Do I already know that is the perfect way to rebel against me -- like my strict vegan friend whose son now works at and dines at Burger King?) All right, I'll stop. Not for good, but for this one blog.

The catch was they had to go for the ride and not text or answer their phones. They had to actually sit in the car like it was... "1990 or something..." (as they put it). They didn't really talk to me. I asked a few questions and got responses like, "Huh?" - "Ya" - "Duuude" - what they did do was talk to each other, and then I remembered why I like talking to (or rather, listening to) teenagers so much. I asked them if they were going to join Pep band again this year. In case you don't know, (and I, who was gifted with the athletic ability of say, Woody Allen, never knew) Pep band is their school's band that plays the National Anthem and other songs to induce tribal unity at football games and the like.

"You know, Mom, they don't let us sit during the games," Philip said, "and I play the sousaphone which is just so cool."

"It is sort of cool," I said.

"Right, because it's one of the few instruments you can actually wear."

Christopher commented, "You can see the bell of Philip's sousaphone from across the field. And Pep band is like being a musical cheerleader."

Then they launched into a mini-tirade on all the stupid things they had noticed lately.

Christopher: "Who is that woman on t.v. who sells the sleep number beds? All it says under her name is that she is a bed owner. Who isn't a bed owner?"

Philip: "Why do they swab the prisoner's arm with alcohol before giving him the lethal injection? Why does it matter at that point?"

Christopher: "Why do they put prices on the dollar menu? If it's the dollar menu..."

They did have to take their phones out at the harbor, just to check their messages. But because they tolerate me, Christopher took one phone camera shot of me and Philip (yes, he's over six feet). I pretended that was the reason they had their phones out.

Still, I had them to myself for just a short time.

Summer Reading and Karma

Years ago, when I was first given high school students as victims, I took summer reading very, very seriously. I made a comprehensive list by researching books that would help kids either on the SAT's or in September's English class, I wrote up thoughtful discussion questions, typed them out and stapled them into packets that I mailed home. I saw nothing wrong with asking 14 year olds to read five books and answer questions on them during their ten weeks off. After all, isn't that what summer was for -- reading?

Well, no. It had been for me, but I'm only now realizing exactly how weird a kid I must have been.

My summer packets rarely came back and the more experienced teachers smiled when I complained. They told me I would be lucky if some of the kids read one book. This was shocking news to me: what was wrong with the kids in that school district? Maybe something in the town's water supply was making them lazy.

But they weren't lazy; they were teenagers. (Though it could be argued that lazy/teen
are synonymous).

So fast forward. While I am diving for socks under my son's bed this morning, I find Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

"Why is this here?" I ask my 16 year old.

He yawns, shrugs, and turns away.

"This is required reading. Did you finish it?"

"Nah, it's just about this Jewish guy in Princeton who tells lies. And it's racist."

"Oh, right. That's a thorough analysis. Did you read it?"

"Ma, I told you. They let the writer talk about how he's stubborn because he's Jewish. You can't say stuff like that."

"You understand it's about the disillusionment of the time period after World War I, that..."

"How many books do I have to read for English this year?"

"Two."

"Dude, that's not gonna happen." He yawns again. "Not when they assign books with racist writers."

"Don't you have to write an essay on this? And on the other one?"

"Last year so few kids read that the teacher just let us do it on a short story she gave out in class. Actually, she read the story to us."

(He's in college prep level English)

"You know what's going to happen to you if you don't read, don't you, Christopher?"

"Yup. I'm going to end up homeless. You've been telling me that since I was 9."

"What about if we read it together and talk about the chapters?"

Christopher smiles very patiently at me. "Mom, it takes way, way too long that way. You like go over every little thing. Just tell me what happens."

"No, that would ruin it."

"You know what would be cool?"

"Not Spark Notes...please, anything but Spark Notes..."

"No, no, but why don't they just make video games out of these books and take out all the slow parts? Then we would do them. And it wouldn't take so long."