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Parenting Old School

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on March 31, 2012| 1 Comment »

Thank you to my friend Polli for uploading this article onto her Facebook newsfeed this morning:
http://mobile.theweek.com/article/index/96342/the-last-word-advice-from-americas-worst-mom

Now you have to know Polli. She’s one of those moms with 6 kids and a clean kitchen. I could never figure out how she did it. Plus, she threw great parties and was the most welcoming hostess ever. The neighborhood adored her, and for some reason, she decided to befriend me. I was ecstatic to help her with flower arrangements for beach weddings and to call on her at anytime for parenting advice. I remember distinctly complaining about not being able to get the Rocker up for school, despite 3 alarm clocks, and she matter-of-factly said, “If he misses the bus, he walks.” Brilliant. I remember using this same philosophy many times. My motto was ‘to learn responsibility, you must give them some responsibility.’ Was I a bad parent? And BTW, we lived about a half mile down a dead-end street and the kids had to ride their bikes to the main drag to get the school bus. At some adolescent point – that being before they got a driver’s license – riding bikes was just not cool. But no parent drove their kids to the bus stop or waited for their return, unless it was sleeting freezing rain. I wonder if they are doing that now?

And I wonder, would I allow my 9 year old to ride the subway? Well since I can’t fathom the NY subway system myself, probably not. But if we lived in NY, maybe? The Bride was once reminiscing to a friend and said that I had told her never to smile at anyone. Stunned, I said I did no such thing. Then she reminded me of a trip by train into NYC. Walking through Penn Station, some seedy looking guys at a pizzeria were smiling and waving at her. Then I saw my eleven year old daughter smiling right back. Indeed, I grabbed her hand and told her NEVER to do that again! It was the start of suburban parenting meets city gorilla parenting, we needed to teach our daughters – don’t dawdle, walk straight ahead, don’t look up at skyscrapers, don’t act like a tourist, etc etc… I was not a Tiger Mom, and I tried not to be a Helicopter Mom, but we all want to know if we did a good job at parenting. Sometimes we get to ask them what they thought, and now on the eve of becoming a grandparent myself, I’m starting to reflect.

I did send the Bride at sixteen with her Maid of Honor and BFF to Paris alone one summer. Here they are hamming it up at the wedding.

You see their Duke University group was stranded at the Raleigh-Durham airport by a sudden storm, so they would miss their Kennedy connection. There we were, waiting at Kennedy in NY, and the BFF’s Mom and I made the executive decision that the girls were old enough to fend for themselves. And they did, riding the Metro, finding their housing, and spending one of the best weekends of their young lives in Paris unsupervised (all pre-cell phone). It’s a good thing nobody from the Today show called me! I might have been drummed out of the Corps of Good Parents.

Back to the recalcitrant Rocker. He was taking a sailing course at about age 9 in the land of Two Rivers, and one day they had to swamp the boat and get back in. I wrote about it in the newspaper. I said sometimes boats sink. Because that’s what parenting is, teaching our kids how to survive until they have their own IRA. How to be resilient, and move forward no matter what obstacle they may encounter. How to get themselves up and ready for school. How to get home on a subway, by themselves.

Here’s my advice to new parents – stop swaddling your children in cotton wool. The goal is to get them out of the house eventually, not to chew their food for them. Hello! And to that end, here are a couple of very good references:
Bringing Up Bebe, by Pamela Druckerman
The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel
“Free Range Kids” Blog by Lenore Skenazy

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The First Spring Thunder

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on March 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Ivy Farmers gathered again last night to discuss the book Hedy’s Folly, by Richard Rhodes. The day was rain soaked, falling out of the sky in buckets along with a cacophony of thunder that surprised Ms Bean. Unlike my Buddha, she was not afraid and simply raised her ears and eyebrows as if to say, “That’s interesting!” My friend Barbara drove this time through puddles and patches of ground fog to our “meeting of the minds,” to discuss Old Hollywood celebrity, genius, and German Shepherds who routinely escape their Invisible Fence. Now their owner must appear in “Dog Court.”

Hedwig Kiesler, aka Hedy Lamarr, was one of Hollywood’s earliest film sirens. I vaguely remember seeing old black and white movies of her on late night TV before TCM. What I didn’t know is that she was an astonishingly complicated, and smart woman who escaped Vienna and the looming Nazi threat (she was Jewish) while at the same time abandoning her husband, Fritz Mandl, an extremely wealthy, and abusive Austrian arms dealer. In this book, we find that the “most beautiful woman in the world” has a brain, and that she teams up with a New Age musician, George Antheil, originally from Trenton, NJ to invent “…a radio-controlled “spread spectrum” torpedo-guidance system, for which they received a patent in 1942.”

Because Hedy was a glamorous movie star, and George was an avant garde composer, the US government did not take them seriously. However, cell phones, GPS and Blue Tooth technology today are only possible because of their unlikely collaboration and invention!

We wondered if being a beautiful and brilliant woman today poses the same challenges. I’ve heard that single Harvard women don’t like to drop the “H” bomb on unsuspecting dates. Really guys, still?

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A Presidential Grandfather

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on February 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

Happy, snowy President’s Day everyone. This weekend we avoided big box store sales and headed up the mountain to our very own Monticello. Even if we didn’t live here, I’d have to count Mr Jefferson as one of my very favorite presidents. His writing, his architecture, his grandchildren! We met cousins Anita and Skip for an author’s book launch lecture, “Jefferson’s Granddaughter in Victoria’s England,” by Ann Lucas Birle.

Ellen Wayles Coolidge was a favorite granddaughter. She was schooled alongside TJ at Monticello by her Mother in all the classics that young men would learn in the early 19th Century. Her retired Grandfather would hum Scottish tunes while he worked and always made time for little Ellen; calling to her, asking how many thousands of things she must have to talk to him about. She didn’t marry until she was 27, almost ancient for a bride at the time, and most likely because she was not only brilliant and charming, she was extremely witty. I imagine a young suitor may have been intimidated by her presence, along with the requisite entrance into the Great Hall in order to meet the President, her Grandfather. The not so young Mrs Coolidge managed to have 6 children in 5 years (there was a set of twins) and if ever there was a reason for contraception, Mr Santorum, just read some history!

If she lived today, she’d be a blogger! She wrote almost daily in her “fully indexed” travel diary from 1838 to 1839 and as a result, we can now read about her first trip to England. Ellen Coolidge’s health was failing after such rapid-fire childbirth, and so the trip was planned to restore her body, mind and spirit. Her writing is fiercely personal, but with lightening flashes of divine satire. It’s as if Edith Wharton met Jon Stewart. She writes of the Coronation, the Tower, of art and the great English writers she meets. And about Thomas Jefferson she says:

“My grandfather can never be a favorite of the few, being himself the friend of the many. There is a perpetual opposition between the rich and the poor which makes an advocate for the one always appear an opponent of the other; but this is temporary; posterity, although divided into the same classes, judges with less ‘esprit de corps’ the actions of past times and tardy justice is done….”

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The Turtle and the Hare

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on November 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

We’ve been enjoying a tropical Thanksgiving week on an island in the French West Indies. I am grateful for the beautiful weather, the warm Carribean sea, and my little family of six. With the Rocker’s touring schedule and the Newlywed’s Chief year, it’s a wonder we could all manage to vacation together and I am acutely aware of this moment. Below is the view out our kitchen window. breathe…

We also feed the family of turtles who live under the pool. They absolutely love bananas and today we found a baby turtle. We’ve taken to naming them and they like to follow us around. The baby will let us
pet him. If you would like to know the sex of a Turtle, just ask us! I’m hoping to see an iguana before we leave. Here is Maude and Cb with the baby tortue (turtle in French).

And now for the Hare. I’m currently reading “The Hare with Amber Eyes.” I am 71 percent finished since the Kindle tells me so. My friend Diane the art historian told me about this non-fiction book. Without giving too much away, it’s the story of a very wealthy Jewish family and their collection of tiny Japanese bibelots called “netsuke.” These are small carvings of ivory and wood depicting country scenes like rabbits, rats, and turtles, even fishermen with nets. Beautifully intricate delicate beyond imagination, these netsuke were the only thing saved from the Nazis for a great nephew. The author, Edmund de Waal, weaves his family history into the political landscape of pre-WWII with compelling results

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Porch Sittin’

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on July 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It’s Book Club time again. Tonight we’ll be discussing Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. In our club, the woman who hosts that night at her house gets to pick the book, and I’m excited to discuss this 1930’s African American coming of age novel. Born in 1891, Ms Hurston grew up in the country’s first incorporated Black township in Eatonville, Florida. By the time she died in 1960, penniless and working as a maid, this Harlem Renaissance author had published several short stories, screenplays, eight novels and four childrens’ books.

I had trouble digging into this book simply because of the language. Her dialogue is pure early, Black Southern vernacular. “Speakin’ of winds, he’s de wind and we’se de grass,…he’s got uh throne in de seat of his pants,” is a good example of how grammar is exchanged for metaphor which I finally loved to read slowly and savor. Because I could identify with Janie, who was in some ways Hurston herself. Her grandmother wanted her to marry well and sit up high on the porch, listening to the stories of others and never giving voice to her own.

It was wonderful to see on CNN this morning our Black Congresswomen coming to the aide of a white Florida delegate, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, after a Black male delegate, R- Allen West called her out in an email to shut her mouth and start acting like a lady! Are we still talking semantics or is there something more sinister here? The numbers of women in our Capital building are dwindling partially because of this patently absurd culture.

My first post-college job in 1973 was at the Fremont Street Head Start Pre-School in Jersey City, NJ. My four year olds were precious, and their parents wanted only the best possible education for them, not unlike any other Caucasian parents. But we had to deal with drug users and sellers in the alleys, broken glass on the cement playground where the equipment had to be hauled inside every night, and burnt out buildings in the neighborhood instead of parks. My eyes were opened as I began to understand their dialect, and the multi-generational language of poverty.

We’re having a heat wave right now on both sides of the mountains. Tonight will bring some cooler heads to this porch of smart Southern women.

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On the Lam

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on June 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Let’s talk about life following art, or Irish Boston Gangster follows Nordic Noir Triumvirate? Let me explain. My family loves to read. I can still remember the first time I caught my children sitting alone on the couch, totally oblivious, reading a book without any prompting. I remember clearly the first time the Bride cried over a fictional character, I’m pretty sure his bike was stolen. And when we vacation, it’s all about the books; we devour novels. From obtuse, scientific metaphorical non-fiction (Bob), to the latest and greatest fiction, we read it all. But rarely do we all read the same books at once.

Except for Steig Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy. I have to admit, I started it with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and before Kindle too.

Crime fiction was not my usual niche, but finding an author I loved, and reading absolutely everything they wrote is my MO. And I had to read more about Lisbeth Salander. What was it about this nymph of a girl, part hacker part guardian angel, that captured the world? I was devastated to learn that the author had died and this would be all we would ever hear of Lisbeth, until…Larsson’s partner, Eva Gabrielsson, revealed that she still owns his laptop computer with about 200 pages worth of a fourth novel.

And right in the middle of Eva’s promotional tour for her new book, There are Things I Want You to Know, an 81 year old Irish mob boss, James “Whitey” Bulger,  a Southie who turned into an FBI mole, is found hiding in plain sight among aging hippies in Southern California! It just doesn’t get any better than this – Sopranos meets Vikings. Like the villains in Larsson’s books,  Dr Peter Teleborian, or Nils Bjurman, her supposed guardian, evil psychopaths are lurking right where you’d least suspect them.

"Whitey"

I hear Jack Nicholson played a Bulger-like character in a Martin Scorsese movie, The Departed? I wouldn’t know, since violent movies were never my thing – I may have to change my evil ways, baby. And please don’t let the judge keep him from making a book deal!

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Lilacs and a Sleeping Porch

Posted in books, journal, wedding, tagged , , , on May 3, 2011| 3 Comments »

The dwarf Korean lilacs are in bloom outside my sleeping porch. They perfume the air as we clean the gutters, slip into the hot tub, or take a break to read under the twirling ceiling fan. Although I directed the builders at the very last minute to attach a porch off the master bedroom, we don’t actually sleep there, like true Southerners might have done in pre-AC days. But we do rest there, on our zero-gravity chairs, and smell the lilacs.

Lilacs bloomed outside my bedroom window when I was a girl, my foster mother Nell would mound them in mason jars on the kitchen table. She had a beautiful smile, and the best sense of humor. At some point in my young life, I decided it was my mission to make her laugh. Her husband Jim, made me doll houses out of Popsicle sticks, and together they created a home. A home full of love and laughter. And although Nell didn’t drive, because in those days women rarely did, I felt as if anything was possible.

I planted lilacs outside our home in NJ, in Nell’s honor. Every morning, a Great Blue Heron would swoop out over them toward the river to fish for breakfast. And I brought pressed lilacs to the 9/11 widow two houses away who’s husband, Michael Patrick Tucker, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. Our little borough lost 13 people on that day. As I stood at the memorial weeks later, I remember thinking, “How can I put this into words?” There were no words.

Which is why I enjoyed reading this article at NPR’s website, about the ambivalence of hearing about the death of the BinLaden. “…because terrorism partakes of both crime and war, it is perfectly natural, and perhaps legitimate, to have both of these attitudes towards Osama bin Laden: to think that we had to disable him, and to think that he deserved to die.”

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/03/135927693/is-it-wrong-to-celebrate-bin-ladens-death?sc=fb&cc=fp

If a Harvard professor of Philosophy thinks it’s perfectly legitimate to rejoice in someone’s death while still thinking he was a sorry old man, probably sick in so many different ways; and that each person’s death diminishes me, to semi-quote John Donne, leaves me feeling hopeful. And thinking I may have to take a philosophy book out on my porch, and shut off the news of the day.

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