Dear Grandma,

 I thought of you when I dropped Dash at school this morning. In the moment I turned to go, his expression was one of consternation and I wished in that second that he felt happier.

 I wondered what you would have felt when you saw his expression, which has prompted me to invoke you, to ask you to join me on the playground, to come observe this new world of parents and their children and what you might have to say drawing from your own experience.

You could answer without the fear of my blame and with distance and objectivity (you’ve been dead for more than 30 years) and perhaps without guilt.

What would you say to me about worrying for Dash in that moment, about my understanding that it’s not important for him to be happy all the time and that asking that of someone is a burden, and yet, how hard it is to not try to fix those unhappy moments? Did you feel that?

Would you be mystified with my fretting, with the overattention my friends and I pay to school and activities and how it’s all surrounded by a miasma of guilt for not doing enough?

What would you say when we don’t punish him but rather ask him why he’s so angry, when we don’t force him to share, or to say he’s sorry? If you said that it is the role of children to obey and do as adults wish them to do, would you understand the powerlessness and lack of dignity they endure? Would you point out that my friends and I have lost ourselves too much in shaping their lives, that we have made ourselves (and our children) anxious in wanting too much?

I’m sure you would recognize that a vast population of parents has taken an about-face from the way we were brought up. You would note that some of us have gone too far and the rest of us are trying to figure out the right balance. I’m sure your (drawn-on*) eyebrows would rise when Dash resisted going on errands with us since they’re boring and “they’re not about me.”

So, tell me, Grandma, if you had motherhood to do all over again…

                                        

Dash’s BFF, Oedipus, is currently on vacation, or more likely visiting some other kid who’s still stumbling around looking for Sigmund Freud’s Phallic or Latency Phase. I’m glad for a break from Oedipus. Sure, he’s adoring and effusive in his praise and declarations of love, but the kid is clingy and demanding and makes me take my shoes off as soon as I return home in the hope that that will prevent me from (ever) leaving. 

I thought I’d be more relieved when Oedipus exited the building; I thought I would have an opportunity to experience the benign neglect Dennis has sometimes endured. Of course, I would pull it off with poise while secretly enjoying my liberation.  But Oedipus’s sub isn’t some guy who’s about hanging out with Daddy and letting Mommy off the hook to do whatever mamas do when they’re not taking care of him. Nope, he’s some dude who is nothing but irritated by me.

I know, it’s great. Really. He’s separating from me. On Monday he told me he didn’t miss me since school was so amazing. Tuesday, he happily spent with Dennis and hardly looked up for a kiss when I returned home. And Wednesday, he pushed me out the door at drop-off so he could be on his own with his peeps. I love it! But must it be accompanied by eye rolls, minor insults, and pissed-offness over nothing? Why, O Gods of child development, must Oedipus’s replacement be Irritation?

And then, there’s my stuff—what do you do when you’re conscious of just how annoying you are to your child?  

My dear friend P. has recently suffered the indignities of being an occasional punching bag to his teenage son. P. knows  his mere presence can, on occasion, drive his son bananas. But P. is well adjusted enough to know that it’s not his issue, that when you feed, clothe, and love unequivocally someone who can often be unlovable, it’s too bad if you don’t smell your best first thing in the morning or you breathe a little too loudly when you have a cold. So knowing that, why do I want it all? Why would I ever expect him to feel independent and have just enough enjoyment of my company, while respecting my feelings and understanding that it’s impossible to wake up with minty fresh breath? Is this all too much to ask? Why must separation inspire obnoxiousness?

Back when I was unsure about nearly everything about Dash, one of my few certainties was that it was not only okay, but good for him to get dirty and wet and just plain disgusting (if he so chose) when he played. I may have felt bad about not childproofing or uncertain that allowing him to use our electric toothbrush (without the brush part) to "drill" his toy box was an “age-appropriate” activity, but my faith was strong and my identity was stronger—I’m a mom who lets her kid play in the sandbox, who delights in puddle-jumping, and will join him in wallowing in the mud. I’m that cool.

Like anyone cared... Who were the disapproving tsk-tskers?  The parents who didn’t want to hose their kids down as soon as they stepped in the door, or have an apartment floor reminiscent of summer days at the beach?  Way to buck the system, Jenny!

The same held true for not pushing toilet training, or letting him stay in his crib until he started resembling Alice (of Wonderland fame), her long neck protruding from the chimney after sampling the “Eat me” cake.  Anyone who had strong opinions about these choices were clearly not “my people.”

Discussions with parent friends may have gotten more complex when it was time to choose elementary school, but conversations were devoid of judgment. Parents seemed to only show concern for their own child’s education,though the occasional eye-roll was inevitable when I went on my progressive school spiel.

But as Dash’s mind develops and he becomes more aware and concerned with the complexities of the world, Dennis and I are forced to explain both the inexplicable and revisit questions that can no longer be answered in the former simple ways.

The old answers: “Not for a long time”; “He doesn’t have anywhere to live”; “They were mean because she looks different” no longer satisfy him. The list of topics reads like an outline for de Blasio’s campaign speech: homelessness, poverty, race, sex, money.

And let’s not forget death. I add it last because this one started a while back for us when my stepfather died. What a long deep silence it was when dash asked me if when Grandpa died it was forever.

So I suggested a discussion group for the parents in Dash’s k/1 class to talk about issues that kids are asking about. Many are interested, and a less naïve person than I would not have been as surprised at how quickly politics (Webster’s fifth definition: the total complex of relations between people living in society) intercede.

I’m curious to hear what others say, but also hesitant to peel away another layer, to expose my feelings on far more intricate subjects than how I feel about skipping training wheels.

Stay tuned…

Part 2

I know, it’s been nearly as agonizing a wait as the week preceding the final Sopranos episode. Foremost on your mind has been the question: “Did Dash go to Coney Island?”

He did.

But there was no watershed moment, no first act finale in which Dash, center stage, belts out,  “I did it, I went to Coney Island and nothin’ ll stop me now!” backed by a chorus of six-year-olds leaping and jazz-handing through a quaintly graffiti-ed subway car. 

Nope.

You’d think, by not—if not from my own experience than from seven years of Dash—I’d remember movement in life is rarely linear.

It may be that I still expect life to imitate art, or more specifically  “Once upon a time” stories, but more likely that I speak to all the wrong parents: the moms who talk about how toilet training was like “flicking a light switch,” or the dads who mention how once their kid picked up a book to read, he hasn’t put it down yet.  If this is really happening out there, we not a party to this forward motion. Rather our little family’s way of moving through change or “development” is more likely to resemble the moves in the Macarena (arm, arm, hip, hip, shimmy, shimmy, turn to the side!) Here’s one example:  After slowly and painstakingly relinquishing Dash of his crib, then diapers, we got Soviet and made an ultimatum at four for getting rid of his bopper (aka pacifier) His response: Are you going to take everything away from me?

As if to prove that one small Coney-Island-step was by no means a leap for anyone, let alone mankind, he had a major freak-out on the L-platform at the Bedford stop the day after the beach trip and an operatic recital (many arias) MILES away from a subway station soon after.

I know that we will get through this. I know that to maintain some level of sanity and maturity we must believe that a plan is a good thing; a plan helps you move forward, and we will proceed with that idiot scheme as our guide. But we all know what’s really going on. What’s really happening is all the parts of Dash are gathering, in no linear or sensible way, and all those thoughts and feelings, smells and sounds work on and with him to combat this thing, and all we can do is add something into the mix of stew and stir.

Part 1

We have to decide whether to make Dash do something he really doesn’t want to do. In the scope of life, a tiny decision, one that doesn’t even merit a word with three syllables…. Let’s call it a “choice,”  less significant than so many of the choices we lucky middle-class parents get to make (soccer or hip-hop on Wednesdays?)  Not life or death, not a safety issue…

If I make him go to Coney Island with his class (24 subway stops as he’s counted) and then return (24 stops again) will he feel triumphant, and therein is it worth the anguish it will take to a) get him to school, b) burden his amazing teachers with his anxiety on the train ride there and back? And what does it mean that I’m taking this singular person and bending him to my will because I think it’s “good for him”? Is this what it means to be a parent?

Those of us who are married make some sort of promise to each other whether it’s to be there in sickness and health or not to tattoo someone else’s name on your hip. But what do we promise as parents?

Most of us force them go to the doctor, eat the occasional vegetable, get a good amount of sleep, take a bath, not play with fire. Generally, no-brainers….

But then there are these decisions in which we have to play both parent and kid (and psychotherapist)….What will he think I’ll make him do next if I force him? What will he try to escape doing next if I don’t? Or more important, how will he feel if he doesn’t go? Relieved, disappointed, can I go so far as to say self-loathing?  Does he expect me to do this for him? Is this one of those moments that I’m supposed to step up and be the grown-up? I—who feel more comfortable before making a decision than relieved after—am now consistently put in a position of deciding for someone else.

 My goodness, if my grandfather could hear my vacillations… I can hear his LES immigrant voice, “force him? Of course, you force him. It’s a school trip, he goes!” But we are neither parents of that time— evidenced by our taking the word “parent” and using it as a verb—nor can we pretend to be.

Stay tuned for fallout… same alien time, same alien station.