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I Don’t Want to be a Rockstar Anymore

Traveling with a toddler is an interesting way to speand a weekend.  Quite honestly, Mary Tyler Son is a champion airplane traveler.  When you prep him right so he knows what is happening when, and you’ve got chewy treats for the take-off and landing, and he has access to his favorite books and toys, he does great. 

I think the best compliment I ever got was from an older man when I was flying home alone from NYC with the little one this summer.  Mary Tyler Dad will be the first to tell you that I sort of, kind of rely on him for a lot of the heavy lifting when we travel as a family.  My job is to get my stuff and the boy’s stuff ready, and Mary Tyler Dad basically does everything else.  Packs.  Gets the boy’s diversion pack for airplane ready.  Tickets.  I fluff my hair and go.  He does everything else. 

Traveling alone with the boy this summer, I had to take the lead.  I mean I encouraged two year old Mary Tyler Son to do it, but he just kind of looked at me.  Yeah, I had to step up, so I did.  And we did great.  Anyway, back to the best compliment ever.  Mary Tyler Son and I were flying home from NYC and he did beautifully.  I had chatted very briefly with the older man next to me who was visiting his son in Chicago.  At the end of the flight, he leaned over and in his warm, yet authoritarian voice said, “You know, if all of the people of the world had a mother like you, there would be no problems.”  I don’t know what it is, but older Jewish men always seem very God-like to me.  I think it is the Catholic in me.  That compliment had me on a cloud for weeks.   And four months later, I’m trotting it out for you, so you see, it still holds water for me.

My family flew to Philly on Friday for a friend’s wedding, but we have lots of friends and family there, so we decided to extend our stay and see some folks.  Mary Tyler Son, as is him norm, did fantastically on the flight.  No nap, which is tough on him, but he conked out before we left the airport in the rental car.  We got to our friends’ home, chatted, unpacked, and told Mary Tyler Son it was time to see the Aunt and Uncle for Shabbat dinner.  That meant leaving our friends’ home, full of new and exciting toys, to get back in the car for 30 minutes.  Sigh.  And, of course, I forgot the wine and flowers I had picked up, adding another twenty minutes to the trip.  So we missed sundown. 

Our lovely boy, the one who had behaved so beautifully on car and train and plane and bus, decided Shabbat dinner was a perfectly wonderful time to turn.  With his three younger cousins seated at the table, Mary Tyler Son refused.  Point blank was having none of Shabbat dinner.  What is the etiquette here, people?  I did not want a fight, we had already delayed the dinner, and all were hungry.  I let him sit on the rug next to us and play with a helicopter.  And that, of course, was not very kind to the three and four year old cousins who had to sit politely and see this punk kid from Chicago get special treatment after acting the brat.  Sigh.

Eventually, he did join us at the table.  And slurped his soup.  Loudly.  Repeatedly.  But he ate it and loved it.  When it was time to go, another shift to brat.  Ugh.  It is embarassing.  When you only see family rarely and this is the kid they see, whose to say what they think of him or your parenting.  You just gotta shake your head and make the best of it. 

The rest of the weekend went well enough.  Mary Tyler Son did well with Saturday night’s babysitter.  He loved the daughter of our hosts.  He flew well enough again.  He likes to flirt with the folks directly behind us, whoever they may be, but because he is smiley and happy, they all seem happy enough to oblige.  There was the one kerfluffle when we had to stow the electronics.  Yeah, that wasn’t very pretty, but quickly enough, with his chewy treat, all was well. 

The real meltdown came in the car ride home.  You would think piece of cake at this point.  We’re mere minutes from home, but generally, this is when Mary Tyler Son really loses it.  I can’t explain it, but after almost every trip home, he goes ballistic on the ride home from the airport.  This is truly fun in a cab.  Today we had our car.  He started kicking my seat and grunting loundly.  UGH!  UGH!  UGH!  If we were home, this is when he would loudly proclaim, “I’m MAD!  I need to slam a door!”  Effectively restrained in the car seat, he came up with a new one, “UGH!  I don’t want to be a rockstar anymore!”  And on and on.

“DADDY!  I DON’T WANT TO BE A ROCKSTAR ANYMORE!” 

I was not allowed to talk.  Or even open my mouth.  Per Mary Tyler Son, that is.  It’s really hard to stifle a laugh when you can’t open your mouth, but Good Lord, how can you not laugh at a two year old screaming about his rockstar life. He was a mini Russell Brand.  But cuter.  And minus Katy Perry. 

Ugh.  So yes.  Traveling with a toddler is interesting.  He’s a cute kid, so I forgive him everything, but is it 8:00 yet?

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“Kraft och Omtanke” to You

Since posting Donna’s Cancer Story, I have been contacted by hundreds upon hundreds of readers who have been moved, influenced, inspired by our girl.  This has honestly been one of the most humbling experiences I have known.  And, damn, if I’m not gonna need six months to respond to everyone, but I will. 

One reader, a gal named Louise from Sweden, who found Mary Tyler Mom through the Portrait of Adoption post about Donna’s Cancer Story, wrote to me about the inadequacy of words to express what she wished to express to me.  Condolences, support, thoughts, and blessings didn’t quite hit the mark for her.  Instead, she wrote, “kraft och omtanke,” which loosely translates from Swedish to English as “strength and consideration.” 

Louise didn’t explain what it meant in detail to her, but I got it, regardless.  Strength and consideration is what bereaved parents need, she felt.  What I liked about this expression is that it didn’t involve sympathy or a need to reason or explain what happened to Donna and what happened to us as a family when Donna was diagnosed.  Lousie’s wish for us was simple and clear — strength and consideration.

Since she wrote in late September, I have found myself using the phrase when I am contacted by other bereaved parents.  “Strength and consideration,” I write them as I sign off, and let them take it for what it is.  To me, the wish of strength is clear and obvious.  The wish for consideration is less so, perhaps. 

When you look up the word consideration in the dictionary, this is what you find:

  1. the act of considering; careful thought;
  2. something that is to be kept in mind when making a decision;
  3. thoughtful or sympathetic regard or respect; thoughtfulness for others;
  4. a thought or reflection;
  5. a recompense or payment, as for work done; compensation;
  6. importance;
  7. estimation; esteem.

There is so much to mine in these seven nuanced definitions of what is seemingly a simple word.  Last night, on the Mary Tyler Mom facebook page, another reader posted a photo of her new tatoo — two acorns with the ‘choose hope’ mantra next to them.  It was beautiful and kind of fierce.  She wanted it on her wrist so that she would see and be reminded of the message to live life with hope; that hope is a conscious choice to be made every day.  Anyway, I digress. 

In the thread under the ‘choose hope’ tattoo photo, a reader asked others to wish her luck for the upcoming holiday season.  Her daughter, who was born on her own birthday in November, had died at three years old on Christmas Eve.  As you can imagine, November and December must be hell for this mom.  For me, Donna’s birthday is much harder than her death anniversary, or “remembery” as her playmate coined it this year.  (Remembery is my new favorite should be word.)  Donna will never be five or six or seven or anything higher than four.  To have these milestones so attached to a universally recognized holiday, as the reader does, must just suck. 

I wished her strength and consideration.  Our thread continued, as she asked after the consideration part, wanting to better understand it.  I gave her my interpretation, which was that I took consideration to mean understanding with compassion; that Lousise in Sweden wished for me and for all bereaved parents strength and a compassionate understanding of the grief we carry.  Grief is a burden, you see.  It is heavy. 

When I write to other bereaved parents, the Terrible Fraternity, I call us, sometimes I use the Swedish version, and sometimes, when I don’t have another computer or phone handy to look it up, I simply wish strength and consideration.  I don’t explain it, just let people come to their own understanding of what it might mean.

The more I think about “kraft och omtanke,” I understand it more fully and appreciate its universal significance.  Who amongst us doesn’t need more kraft och omtanke in our life? 

I mentioned the humbling nature of the responses I have received and so often, when a reader gives me the gift of their own story, I am simply stunned with wonder and respect for them.  So often, in the comfort of my own head, I ask myself, “My God, how do they do it?”  The irony, of course, is that the reader wrote with the exact same feeling about me, “My God, how does she live with the grief and loss of Donna?”

So to you, reader, whatever your situation, I wish for you kraft och omtanke. 

If you grieve, kraft och omtanke. 

If you have miscarried, kraft och omtanke.

If you didn’t receive the parenting you deserved, kraft och omtanke.

If you are unemployed and there is no hope for work on your horizon, kraft och omtanke.

If you are caring for an autistic child, kraft och omtanke.

If you are a single parent, kraft och omtanke.

If you exist within an abusive relationship, kraft och omtanke.

If your self-esteem doesn’t exist, for whatever reason, kraft och omtanke.

If paying your bills every month is a stressful situation, kraft och omtanke.

If your car broke down in a rain storm, kraft och omtanke.

If you have five children under the age of ten and are a SAHM, kraft och omtanke.

If you are bullied, kraft och omtanke.

If you bully, kraft och omtanke.

If you feel no one understands you, kraft och omtanke.

If you’re stuck in a hundred different ways, kraft och omtanke.

If your name is Gwyneth Paltrow, kraft och omtanke.

If you have the burden of providing, kraft och omtanke.

If you are a liberal, kraft och omtanke.

If you are a conservative, kraft och omtanke. 

If you hit a puppy in your minivan with your daughter in the back seat, kraft och omtanke.

If your toddler is working your last nerve, kraft och omtanke.

If your worry that same toddler will die of cancer, kraft och omtanke.

If you care for a special needs child, kraft och omtanke. 

If you’re not as pretty as your sister, kraft och omtanke. 

If you are a caregiver, kraft och omtanke.

If you love someone who is disappearing a little each day from Alzheimer’s, kraft och omtanke.

If you’re too old to cut your own toenails, kraft och omtanke.

If you or someone you love lives with mental illness, kraft och omtanke.

If you don’t know what to make for dinner, but your family is hungry, kraft och omtanke.

Strength and consideration, folks, to all of us. 

 

 

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Oh, Gwyneth, My Gwyneth

Another archive hit from Mary Tyler Mom.  And if you’ve read Donna’s Cancer Story, now you know why I feel a moral superiority to Ms. Paltrow.  Hope you enjoy!

Last week I wrote about the cruelty of mothering and working, the judgment that goes on, the thanklessness of it all.  This week?  Sorry, but I’ve got to judge.  I can’t stop myself.  Huff Post did a piece on Gwyneth Paltrow a few days ago, I can’t even remember what it was about, but there was a link to Goop, her weekly online “newsletter” about “lifestyle.”  Specifically, a link to her posting about “A Day in the Life” of busy working mothers.  I’m a busy working mother, I says to myself.  I write about working mothers, too, I says to myself.  So I clicked on the link.  I laughed.  I cried.  I wretched. 

At reader request, Gwyneth, or Gwynnie as I like to call her, thought she would solicit a slice of life, day in the life guest blog from two “extremely busy working mothers.”  To best relate to her readers, she chose Juliet, a partner in a California venture capital firm, and Stella, daughter of a Beatle and famed fashion designer.  You know, just two average working Joannas.  The intent was to have the three working moms, Gwynnie included, detail a day in their “manic” lives to see how they fit it all in, how they do it all, if you will, and to share working mom tips for the rest of us.  Ugh. 

How Wealthy White Women Who Work Make It Work:

  • get up b/w 5:30 to 6 am daily to exercise as it will “make you happy”
  • have a personal trainer come to your home on Monday mornings to ensure a healthy start to your work week
  • “curate” your social media and personal web
  • get an amazing assistant
  • commit to a weekly blow out to save time in mornings
  • enjoy 90 minutes of “family time” from 6 to 7:30 pm, as “many nights of the week as you can make it”
  • schedule your acupuncture at 9:30 at night
  • spend your time “impacting the highest upside situations”
  • have dinner with your kids at least 3x/week; read to kids 5x/week
  • find a “great alteration person” to help you “review your looks, sort out closet, and plan key looks for travel, weekend, evenings, holidays”
  • ingest copious amounts of flax seed oil and make your children do the same
  • devise lists and spreadsheets and lists of spreadsheets
  • organize “one or two key moments” during school year so your kids can see you “interacting as ‘Mummy'”
  • take meetings in cabs

I honestly thought I was reading a piece from The Onion.  Alas, I wasn’t.  These three gals go on and on about the difficulties of doing it all and something about it all being worth it.  At one point Gwynnie describes the conundrum of needing to leave the house by 8:20am and having one of her two adorably named kids still asleep at 8am.  In just 20 minutes time, that Gwynnie managed to gently awake her son, dress him, feed him eggs and toast she prepared herself, administer the aforementioned flax seed oil (lemon flavored, she’s not stupid!), finish decorating the Christmas toy drive shoe boxes for those less fortunate, explain the significance and reality of children having less around the world, then wait for her two adorably named kids to go to their playroom and pick personal toys and books to contribute to now completely decorated shoe boxes as they have been sufficiently enlightened about the plight of others and feel for Angelina Jolie’s soon to be adopted children. 

Fuck that.  I reject that is humanly possible.  Gwynnie has lost all credibility, awesome gLee appearance be damned. 

The three gals each very briefly mention their nannies.  Who come to them.  And apparently stay til the kids are in bed.  And probably live with the family.  Fuck that, too.  I can’t stand this need to perpetuate the myth that women can do it all.  We can’t.  Something always suffers.  Always.  It’s work or it’s family or most commonly a bit of both.  And my honest guess is that something suffers for these gals too, even though they are Oscar winners and rock and roll scions and venture capitalists.  What is a venture capitalist, anyway?