Causes for celebrating and slumping

This week is full of birthdays: The 18th would have been John Paul II's 100th birthday. Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday. My son's fiancee celebrates a birthday on the 21st, as does our good friend from college. And I have my own birthday this weekend! All seem like good reasons to have a little cake tonight. We are always looking for some excuse to bake around here. 

Since it is also Laudato Si week, which honors the fifth anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si, maybe we should try to make cake that is waste-free. Does that mean we eat it all (no food waste!) and bake from scratch (no packaging waste!)?  For my own reference, here are links to some events and programs: https://catholicclimatemovement.global/.  One of the speakers is the director of the Yale Divinity School's program in Religion and Ecology. I listened for a little bit this morning.  Some good news is that the environment has received a little reprieve from the pandemic stay at home orders.

I have been doing a little research on potential opportunities for furthering my education. I was hoping that a happy byproduct of this Covid shut down would be some online opportunities for graduate study, but I haven't found much in the field I am researching. Since teaching the Nature Writing class, I have thought perhaps I should finally finish the Ph.D. I had started 20 years ago, although to what end, I keep asking. The the number of programs that integrate ecology and the humanities are growing.  One of my summer goals is to send out a few paper proposals to revisit an academic mindset. When I envision teaching in the long term, I am drawn to a program like this over a literature program because it moves beyond the academic to the practical and connects the arts and sciences. I vacillate between the idea of moving towards a "career" and doing something more altruistic, like volunteering more or looking into foster care now that our own kids are moving out and onward and now that our military life is nearing an end in the next year or two or three... the economic downtown has caused us to revisit whether next summer is the right time for my husband to retire and find a civilian job or take another tour with the Navy.

In other news, we received word yesterday that our college kids in Indiana will be back on campus in the fall.  That's good news, although I wouldn't have minded having them around. They return for a short summer break in a week. The plan for reopening is to minimize student travel by starting school early and ending before Thanksgiving.  The reasoning is that students will shelter in place on campus.

 On the other hand, I am frustrated by a photo in the WSJ of a casino not too far from us opening. In the photo, a line of gamblers is waiting outside the door. They certainly do not look six feet apart, nor do they all appear to be masked.  On the other hand, churches are still closed, and the policies for reconvening that the bishop is suggesting to comply with government restrictions limit attendance to only a small portion of the congregation. Parishioners 65 and older are asked to stay home, and the seating arrangement suggested does not allow families to sit together, so basically everyone with young children is being asked to stay home, too.  So many more accessible options are available - and already in practice elsewhere.  Governor Newsom apparently has been advised that his restrictions on religious services may violate some law,  In the meantime, gamblers can throw all their free money from the government away on slot machines - some casinos aren't even restricting capacity.

I can't think about that anymore because it makes me angry. But while I'm ranting, I will also add my irritation at the Wall Street Journal editors in regard to a different issue.  I am rarely moved to write about political news, but the recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal's Saturday Review section by Gerard Baker was incendiary. He compares the lack of press surrounding the shooting of an elderly white couple by a mentally unstable black man after a robbery to the belated outcry over the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery to suggest that the killing of young black men by white people receives disproportionate media attention.  But a stark difference exists in these cases: the alleged perpetrator in the first case was chased down and killed.  The alleged perpetrators in the Arbery killing went home to life as usual for a few months because of their personal and professional relationships with people in the police and justice departments in their area. This gross injustice reeks of an old boy network that protects the guilty and lets the innocent suffer, as well as a shocking miscarriage of justice that negates any progress in the eradication of racism, despite the media attention that Baker decries.  What precedent is set when Arbery's murder goes unprosecuted for two months on the basis of his killers' claim that it was a citizen's arrest, even though he was unarmed and hadn't committed a crime?  

I do not fear for my young adult sons' lives when they go for a jog, or wear hoodies, or get pulled over for minor traffic infractions.  My friend, however, is afraid to allow her sons to walk alone outside. My sons are white; hers are black.  Until she no longer has to live with that fear, Mr. Baker's argument is weak and perpetuates injustice.  It reads like the words of someone who wants to deny what makes him uncomfortable, but Ahmaud Arbery's story should make him feel very uncomfortable, and horrified, shocked, and saddened that such hate crimes still happen without consequences until an outcry is raised. 

Well, I realize that this post started with happy news and ended with frustration. Is the answer to avoid the news and focus on our immediate surroundings?  Should we avoid emotional engagement with national news or try to balance the response? When should we be moved to action - to write letters to the editor and to the governor?  The news has sucked hours of my attention over the past couple of months -- now I am exhausted by it. Even though I do feel we have a civic duty to be informed about social and political issues, and to engage when we can, I am not very gifted in discerning what level of engagement is too much or too little. I am a passive consumer of news, and not a very active participant in movements against injustice. 

In order to balance my self-condemnation, we did take several bags of shelf stable food that I had purchased in my initial fear that the stores would shut down to a boy scout friend's house for his family to take to the food pantry. I am never an organizer, but I am happy to be a laborer.

So now let us turn to celebrating the gift of life and eat cake. . . 

Knowing what I want

Last night, children, husband, and I converged at the house about 7:15 pm from different practices and events. We were all hot, tired, and hungry.  My husband grumbled because I didn't order pizza, even though I thought about it. I grouched back because I had been listening to a screaming baby for the last half hour and couldn't make a phone call in the car.

Then he pulled lobster out of the refrigerator.

Ah, fresh lobster for dinner! Elegant, refined, succulent and delicious! I'm supposed to be thrilled.

But all I saw was a fishy mess ready to be made, complaints from the kids ready to be heard, and my own hunger unsatisfied.

I wanted a nice soft-boiled egg on toast, not lobster.

But then another kid called because he couldn't get a ride home, and I volunteered to go get him. I'd make my egg when I got home.

On the way to the pick-up, I applauded myself for 1. Walking away from a ticking time bomb of an argument.  2. Knowing what I want.

Being decisive is a victory for me.  I am now mature enough to admit that I don't really like shellfish.  It's chewy and unsatisfying.  I do like shrimp, and I have had scallops perfectly prepared once.  But although I love a good piece of salmon or trout, I do not prefer crustaceans and shellfood.  Perhaps it is a cultivated taste that I haven't indulged in enough, but I like to think I have given shellfish a try over and over, on the East Coast, on the West Coast, in the midwest, in Europe, in Japan, and on Guam.  And I am still halfhearted about it.

I'd rather have a tasty, filling egg over lobster caught the night before by my resourceful, lobster-trap-loving brother-in-law.

But when I got home, the lobster was cooked with some fusilli in olive oil and rosemary, so I lined up behind the kids with my plate and was served my portion, joined them at the back patio table illuminated by the full moon and ate it. And it was good. A little chewy, yes, but the rosemary cut the fishiness. My husband, his good spirits and blood sugar restored with protein and pasta and a pumpkin ale, delighted in the compliments from the kids.  I didn't withhold my thanks and admiration, although I didn't pitch in on the clean-up. (The baby!)

So now I add a third lesson: 3.Let the person most concerned decide.  And 4. Eat what you are given. And 5. Give thanks for a husband who likes to cook, and kids who can do the dishes.

Meanwhile, my decision making faculties remained moderately impaired.  An article in the WSJ last week perfectly described my husband and me - he the satisficer, me the maximizer.  He can make a decision on the fly, without regrets or thinking twice.  I usually have to investigate all the options, compare prices from several providers, look into alternative solutions, etc.  Together we balance each other out.  We have some big decisions looming that are tougher than what's for dinner, but if the past 18 years are any indication, we'll make them eventually and all will be well.  Sometimes at the end of the day, our hard edges are exposed and our faculty for understanding is weakened by hunger and exhaustion, but a good meal and a moment on the back patio with a bright night sky and a full stomach (and sometimes full glasses) does a great deal to restore that balance.

From the stacks

Life has settled into a routine here for the most part: rise, run, school, run around for errands and practices, eat, and then organize stuff with my husband or tend to busy work in the evenings while he works on building desks and lofts and bookshelves for the boys' room. But I broke out of that routine the last few of days and ignored a to-do list and piles of books and photos and knickknacks that need a home to indulge in escapist fiction.  I actually started to post part of this on Reading for Believers last week and pulled it down while I read more. But now I'll throw it up here, since I haven't written anything else lately. 

First: the best book by far was The Book Thief, which I did post about on Reading for Believers.  It really caused my heart to pause. It's the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl during WWII, who "steals" books she can barely read.  As she learns to read and learns the power of words, she also relearns how to love others after losing her little brother and being abandoned by her mother.  Even though the book was not suspenseful - it is narrated by Death who tells you what is going to happen - you don't want to stop reading because you care about each character. And Markus Zusak writes beautifully about the power of language.

The beauty of this book stood in stark contrast with the books I read right before and right afterwards that weren't nearly as redeeming. I don’t know why I persist in reading books that I don’t really like. But I devoted a substantial amount of time to finishing Anne Rice’s Feast of All Saints, because I bought it new, and I wasn’t going to let my $8 go to waste, gosh darnit. 

The story of Rice's book: I bought this lengthy novel over a year ago when we visited Faulkner House Bookstore in New Orleans, a delicious bookstore full of delights. I walked away with Faulkner’s first book Soldier’s Pay, of which I’ve read about a chapter and never finished, and this Anne Rice book. Why this cheap mass market paperback, when there were so many good books there for the choosing – lots of Faulkner, of course, but also Welty and O’Connor and Percy and the other big-name Southern Classic authors?  I guess I was in the mood for something light and wanted to read something about the city. Plus, I have to admit the title lured me in. Rice had just denounced her Catholic roots again, but the title of this book, published in 1979, seemed to presage her reversion 20 years later. Or maybe her inability to escape the Catholicity of her upbringing and life in New Orleans.

Sad to say, the book has little to do with saints and a lot to do with sinners.

The book’s story: The novel is historical fiction about free people of color, gens libre de coleur, in the late 1840’s - early 1850’s New Orleans.  The main characters are Marcel, the son of a rich white planter and a free Haitian named Cecile, his sister, his friend Richard, an undertaker’s son, and his teacher Christophe, who has just returned from Paris where he made his name with a romance novel and was free from the burdens of being colored and gay in 19^th century America. The most likable character was Annabella, the girl whom Marcel loves but who is too dark to be his wife.

You could argue that this is a bit of historical fiction, but it has way too much melodrama to be read as serious literature. It really belongs on the romance novel shelf, although the bits of historical information about the Haitian diaspora were interesting, and I did enjoy reading about life in the French Quarter prior to its becoming a tourist attraction. I almost gave up on it more than once when the tortured love affairs were dragging on and on. I couldn’t hold a good image of Marcel in my head, which is a problem since he was the main character.  And I really couldn’t get a good handle on why it was title The Feast of All Saints, other than maybe the irony of all these conflicted souls meeting up at Mass and funerals. I put this book in the giveaway pile without hesitation because I don’t see myself ever going back to read it or handing it to my kids to read. Not one sentence stood out as beautifully written, nor was there one bit of dialogue or description that stood out as particularly luminous.  Entertaining, but empty.

The other book that I haven’t finished but can’t bring myself to give up on totally is Eternal Echoes by John O’Donohue, an Irish poet whom I heard interviewed on NPR awhile ago. I was loving the interview in which he was talking about the relationship of beauty and transcendence, so when I saw this book at a rummage sale, I scooped it up. However, while it has some beautifully written lines – he is a poet after all – the more I read, the less I get out of it and the more fed up I get with the unnecessarily poetic diction.  It’s supposed to be a book of spiritual insight, and I first I was taken in by the description of the soul’s desire for a place of belonging, but the initial promise is never fulfilled. Lots of “join the dance” type drivel. It’s still sitting on the back of the toilet seat, where occasionally I take a look at it for some brief inspirational message, but I think it will soon join Rice’s book in the giveaway pile.

The other books I gobbled up were the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, which I finished in a couple of sittings. They are the kind of books you can't put down, and because they read quickly, and each chapter ends with a cliffhanger, I stayed up way too late a couple of nights thinking to myself, “just one more chapter, just one more chapter.”

I think a movie is being made based on this series. The Hunger Games is the first of a trilogy, followed by Catching Fire and Mockingjay. It's easy to see why these would make good movies: they're plot-driven, apocalyptic tales about a young girl, Katniss Everdeen, who gets drawn into a reality show-type game run by “The Capital.”  She survives to get drawn into a revolution.  There's action, suspense, hints of romance, moments of nobility. 

I wish I could love these books more. The concept: sometime in the future, most parts of the world have reverted to a more simple, impoverished existence because "The Capitol" conquered the world and divided it into districts that have distinct economies: mining, farming, orchardists, etc. Every year two teen-aged contestants are picked from each district to fight to the death in the Hunger Games.  When her younger sister is chosen in a raffle, the main character, Katniss, volunteers to take her place in the Games, even though she is her family’s main food provider.  At first I was loving this book – self-sacrifice! Familial duty! References to classical myths! Great themes for YA lit. 

But as the book goes on, some things concerned me.  My older boys already read the trilogy last spring, so I’m sorry I didn’t read the book earlier, but I think most of the implications went over their heads. For instance, the games involve violent deaths. Katniss and her co-contestant, the son of the baker who’s in love with her, are long shots to win because they are from a very poor coal mining district.  Of course, you can guess whether or not Katniss dies in the games.  That bit is not a part of the suspense. But some of the deaths of the other contestants are not pretty.  Katniss only kills one contestant directly and that is in self defense, but she is willing to kill innocent people in order to survive.  In the end, a suicide pact is threatened by Katniss and Peeta so that one will not have to kill the other.  While the baker’s son is in love with Katniss, she doesn’t have romance on her mind. There’s some kissing, but they sleep in the same cave without any suggestion of uncomfortable feelings.  

Violence in YA lit was the topic of a Wall Street Journal piece a few months ago.  The author suggested that the newer YA fiction is too explicit in its violence. Compared to The Book Thief, the amount of violence in The Hunger Games isn't especially greater or more explicit, but it seems less meaningful. The beating of the Jews in The Book Thief didn't strike me as glorified, and really I can't say I felt very squeamish about the deaths of the other contestants in The Hunger Games.  They seemed cartoonish in comparison.  

I was interested enough in what happens to Katniss that I checked out the second and third books from the library.  They were easy to finish in a couple days.  Neither the violence nor the relationship between Peeta and Katniss elevates to a concerning level. More concerning is the lack of higher ideals.  Rarely is Katniss's will to survive and defeat the Capitol articulated in terms reflective of a belief in human dignity. Rather, she just wants to live. She doesn't want to be hungry or for her family to be hungry. She doesn't want good people to die in vain. But she doesn't have any qualms about killing her enemies, even though at a few points it wasn't really clear who was her enemy. No vision is offered for what kind of society will take the place of the Capitol if it is defeated. In fact, if anything the alternative government, the rebel District 13, is just as totalitarian.

So while I enjoyed the story, and Collins’ style is engaging, although not particularly distinctive, but a few ideological quibbles prevent me from loving this one and wholeheartedly recommending it.  It took me awhile to pick up on, but finally the use of Roman names for people in the Capitol (Seneca, Octavia, Caesar), the name of the regime for the outlying area (Panem, short for Panem et circenses: bread and circuses, ie. please the masses to keep them under control), and the whole idea of fighting to the death in an arena hit me over the head with the fact that the worldview of this society is modeled after ancient Rome: a dictator, a profligate and superficial upper class, a warrior class, suicide as a higher good than death at the hands of the enemy, a lot of slaves in the outer edges of the country, and finally the use of propaganda to motivate and frighten the working class.  And fighting against Rome is the untamed nature girl, Katniss, named for a plant, her sister Primrose, Haymitch, Gale, Peeta (named for a peat bog?) So nature vs. civilization?  

That idea is kind of fun.  The action is exciting. The characters are interesting. I just wish they were fighting for a higher cause. 

So that’s the latest from here.  Has anyone else read Hunger Games or The Book Thief? They’d be great books for discussion because of some of the difficult themes.  I'm willing to reconsider my take on The Hunger Games. And maybe The Book Thief isn't quite as good as I think. But other than enjoying nostalgia for New Orleans, I can't raise my evaluation of Rice's book.

Nothing new for NFP users

From the Wall Street Journal: "The Tricky Chemistry of Attraction."

Last week's article of marital interest provoked a little more conversation at our house. Pretty much comes down to the fact that touch can heal.

Happy all the time

Not too long ago Pentimento shared an excerpt from The Lone Pilgrim by Laurie Colwin and linked to an article that mentioned her early death of heart failure. Her name jumped to mind when I was at the library the other day, so I picked up Happy All the Time, which happens to be the book reviewed in the article, with more detail and eloquence than what you are going to read here. Colwin had published 10 books before she died in 1992; this one was written in the 70s. It is the story of two distant cousins who are close friends. They meet two smart and attractive women and get married, and the four of them become great pals.

I kept waiting for the unhappiness to set in. Surely the title is meant to be ironic, isn’t it?  For some reason, I had it in my head, wrongly I reconfirmed after finishing the book, that Colwin had committed suicide, so I expected that the characters were waiting for disaster or betrayal, or both.


But nothing really bad actually happens. These people meet, become attracted to each other, eventually allow themselves to fall in love, have a baby, struggle a bit at work, and lead lives of understated contentment. They suffer a little from jealousy and misunderstanding. They find being in love a bumpy road. But soon enough they forgive each other and go out to dinner. They meet interesting and rude people and have clever conversations. They drink and eat well and work at meaningful jobs and maintain a close friendship.

When I finished I wondered if I missed something? I liked the book, although the characters seemed a bit opaque and almost too clever. The story is devoid of sentimentality; the characters purposefully avoid it. One of the characters, Guido, is philosophical and usually thinks before acting, but meets a girl, courts her, and marries her in short order. His best friend Vincent usually acts on whims, but when he falls in love finally with the right girl, he can’t make decisions and second guesses himself until he is overcome with love for his young lady and has to act. The main characters experience a little growth, but minor; they are mostly static characters.


So the story is about how life just happens, a series of small dramas, without being the big drama we expect and perhaps hope for.  Colwin presents a believable and clever tale about the capacity of love and friendship to give meaning to life. The reviewer in the linked article, Jonathan Yardley, compares her work to Jane Austen's for her keenly observed portrait of domestic life.

Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal has an article about overrating happiness. In recent studies, sociologists have found that people who are mostly happy but have some stress from the responsibilities of life are usually more content and healthier than people who chase after perfect happiness. In fact the researchers even found that people who had the kind of stress in their life that comes from working at a meaningful job, or raising children, or maintaining long term relationships, had lower rates of Alzheimer’s, because in the long run, that stress from responsibility came from meaningful work or goal-seeking that contributed to feelings of "eudaimonic well-being." People who question their happiness and intentionally seek it typically are unhappier than these people that suffer a little bit in pursuit of love and goals. (the Lenten lesson from today's WSJ ...)

An interesting point for a naval gazer like myself. My life seems to alternate between periods of extreme business and periods of relative aimlessness. As my sister has pointed out, part of mothering is being available, even if you aren’t needed at the moment. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t be setting some goals, in order to move beyond fulltime mothering and parttime occasional volunteer work to something more defined, whether it be going back to school or working on a project, or getting serious about getting back into shape so I can compete in a triathlon in Guam. And then a situation like yesterday arises: I thought I had the whole day to work on various little projects, but a sick child called home and friends dropped in and a ride to gymnastics fell through, and meanwhile my husband is in Alabama for two weeks. So it is good I was available yesterday. More on this. Because now I’ve got to move on to one of my responsibilities.

Chinese mothers

Several months ago I received a flyer for a special subscription rate to the WSJ. At the time I was feeling adrift from news, and so I signed up. I only read about 20% of the paper, but what I read is 90% of the time interesting. My oldest also comes straight home for school and sits down with a couple sections to peruse while he eats his after school snack.

Saturdays have the best articles; this Saturday, the controversial “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” appeared. Author Amy Chua, a law professor at Yale, mother of two girls, one a concert pianist pictured playing in Carnegie Hall, throws down the gauntlet, bluntly asserting that Chinese parenting, with its emphasis on achievement in academics and music, is better for children and society.(Pentimento also has a note about it.)

At first glance, the standards Chua lays out – no playdates, no drama, no grade less than an A, no complaining, no exception to being number one in every class except gym and drama, no less than three hours at least of music practice a day – seem unattractive and untenable. A Chinese child who receives an A- is rebuked and shamed. You can’t help but wonder what happens to the Chinese child who isn’t a musical prodigy or who has a learning disability, or who is number 2 in his class. I suppose those children become laborers.

Even though my first response to the article is “How extreme,” this article is provocative because much of what Chua writes rings true. Self-esteem does come from success, not from being told you’re good enough, you’re doing fine. Who wants to do fine? When I think about some of the students who were in my class last semester, who didn’t turn in ¾ of the assignments because they were too busy keeping up with facebook and texting, who didn’t care if they failed, I wonder what they think they are going to do with themselves. Live with mom? Sell cable tv? Meanwhile, their Chinese counterparts are preparing to take over the world.

On the other hand, I failed these students. I didn’t motivate them. I didn’t encourage them. I didn’t goad them to work. I am guilty of laissez-faire parenting and teaching. Almost is good enough for me. You tried? Great. In the flurry of after school activities, I don’t care that my younger kids are running around with kids from down the street. They’re running! They’re burning off energy! I can start supper! I like to think they are being creative, but actually I think they spend most of their time arguing about rules and teasing the youngest kid.

I’ve spent a lot of parental energy encouraging my kids to become good readers and hoping they’ll become thoughtful, imaginative, empathetic, judicious, as a result. We’ve put time into catechesis and faith formation, music lessons, and sports. I usually worry that they don’t have enough free time for imaginative play. But while my kids may think I am stricter than most of their school friends’ parents because of the limitations I put on media use, I am less strict than many home school parents, and don't compare to the Chinese model of parenting. And I haven’t encouraged my children's growth in creativity or artistic ability like some of the more free thinking home school parents. I am not an enforcer OR a facilitator. Reading Amy Chua’s article adds to the mother-guilt-load, the “I’m not doing enough for my kids!” fears. Are my kids going to be underachievers?


Chua’s article was matched with an article about how some Chinese parents are beginning to encourage their children to be more creative. They are beginning to read American parenting books. And there are American parents who follow the Chinese model. But I wonder how much this philosophy of demanding high achievement is incompatible with Christian faith. Certainly hard work and perseverance are nondenominational virtues, but if the goal of life is to know, love and serve God in order to be happy with Him for eternity, how much emphasis does a Christian parent put on worldly success? Chua claims that Chinese parents are motivated by the desire for what is best for their children, but they also believe that children are indebted to their parents. My parental ambivalence stems partly from the belief that my children are a gift from God who have a free will that I can't compel or form to my will.

This is my out, right? My reason for not emulating the model of Chinese mothers: I want my children to love God and neighbor more than I want them to get all A’s.

But how have I modeled and encouraged that life? Poorly.

On the bandwagon

Everyone else has probably moved on to new topics, but I meant to say something in passing about the Erica Jong editorial and the accompanying essay by her daughter that were in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend. Although a few years ago I might have been more offended by Jong’s denigrating remarks about attachment parenting and “motherphilia,” now that my youngest is school aged, I feel no personal offense, and instead wonder more about Jong’s own feelings toward the article written by her daughter. Jong’s fiery comments can be dismissed as a reaction against the political implications of attachment parenting. She sees it as a tool of the right-wingers to keep parents too tired to protest, although it seems to be a parenting style that appeals to the extremes of both political stripes. The voices of pro-lifers, who are sometimes attachment parenting proponents, raised in protest certainly belie this claim, while the environmentalists and celebrity moms she mentions (Madonna and Angelina) don’t seem to be paragons of conservatism.

She seems to be setting herself up for controversy. Maybe she has a new book coming out and needs some press.

But the more dramatic story is the subtext in the pairing of the two essays: Erica Jong criticizes women who give up work to stay home with children, breastfeed on demand, and make the choices that she encouraged their mothers to reject. Then her daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, who stays home and helicopter parents, writes about her mother’s ambivalence toward parenthood. She says her mother wasn’t a bad mother, BUT her mother was “as good a mother” as she could be.

So is Molly Jong-Fast suggesting that there are better mothers, or that her mother could have been a better mother? That some women are temperamentally better suited to motherhood than others?

I have to admit I agree with that statement with qualifications, and wouldn’t hesitate to say that I’m not one of the better mothers out there. I’ve said before that I am not a cuddly, crafty type. But I followed some of the practices of attachment parenting, in a large part to delay the return of fertility. And unlike the many women like Molly Jong-Fast whose parenting style represents an implicit rejection of the way their mothers parented, I admired the example of my own mom who stayed home while we were little, nursed us, shopped at the co-op, and made yogurt and breads from the Tassajara Bread Book. She also went back to work when we were school-aged and let us listen to Marlo Thomas sing about how mommies can be anything. So I grew up thinking girls could do anything boys could do, but better, and I still wanted to stay home with my kids while they were babies. I didn’t think about not breastfeeding. I used cloth diapers to be green, but also because I was cheap. Of course, I had high-minded ideals about why I should stay home to devote myself to my babies, but I was also a little bit lazy and lacking in ambition. Fortunately, my husband had a job with benefits that accommodated our cheap standards of living, so I didn’t have to work.


I’m also aware of how parenting practices don’t work the same way for every kid, so our parenting style shifted a little with each new baby. Each child has needed something a little different from me. And they don’t stay needy babies very long. So Jong’s rant against attachment parenting as a step back for feminism hardly seems relevant, since for many women this stage lasts only about three to five years. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the generation that is growing up nurtured by doting mothers returns to a more detached style of parenting.

These are rambling thoughts. I don’t have parenting all figured out. And perhaps Erica Jong is really ranting against the attitude of knowing the secret to perfect parenting that can be present in attachment parenting craze and causes some women to feel like they will fail as mothers if they don’t nurse or carry their babies around. Other women haven’t pressured me to parent a certain way, but I haven’t really hung out in high pressure groups. My guilt is all self-inflicted.


If I felt peer pressure, it was not from proponents of attachment parenting; it was from the “Why aren’t you using your degree?” types like Erica Jong. I still remember the hurt feelings caused by a college professor I bumped into one time with the four kids I had then, even if I don’t remember the exact words he used to suggest I was wasting my education by staying home.

The real influence on why I chose to parent the way I have would have to go to J P II’s Familiaris Consortio. Before my husband and I were married, we studied up on all the marriage and family encyclicals and church documents and were bombarded with the message that love and self-sacrifice go hand and hand, the same theme that ran through the literature I was reading. I’m not sure what Jong would think about that, but her editorial doesn’t seem to consider self-sacrifice much of a virtue.



Not that I’m good at self-sacrifice, either. This blog is an indulgence. My children will probably grow up and criticize me for being too emotionally detached, and they already decry my heavy handed censorship of what they watch and read. Some kid is always accusing me of favoritism. Since every one of the kids has said this, I feel pretty certain that I’m equally unfair to them all. I’m aware of my shortcomings as a mother. But my goal isn’t to be a perfect mother, but to help point my kids toward God, their origin and their ending. Being the best mother I can be, like Molly Jong-Fast says, is enough if I can help the kids see that love and self-sacrifice are entwined.

So in the end, I feel sorry for Erica Jong, rather than irritated by her, because she obviously has had some painful relationships in her life. And perhaps her relationship with her daughter has been one that has given her pain. I hope the pairing of the two essays is a sign of the strength of their relationship instead of a weakness.