Tips on being a parent (from someone who isn't)

The toughest job in the world has got to be being a parent.

The first time this became clear to me I was around fourteen. A friend and I were talking about the completely dysfunctional, often clueless, downright weird things mothers and fathers do. In monotone and with her gaze fixed on the horizon, she confided what hers had inflicted upon her. “My parents love each other so much that I always come in second”.

That’s when it hit me – no matter what you do, you’re going to screw up your kids. (My hope is that you find this oddly liberating.)

In the past few weeks, for a variety of reasons related more to their circumstances than to my experience, friends have asked my opinion in matters of parenting, specifically as it relates to divorce. I thought I’d put together my list of top four amateur recommendations (I repeat, “amateur”. To be perfectly clear I’m not only not a professional; I’m not even a parent.)

1. Don’t make decisions based on what is good for your children. Make decisions based on what is good for you. (This doesn’t mean “completely disregard what is important to them". It means “put yourself first, them immediately second.”) I know this sounds unforgivably selfish. But kids learn by example. Teach them to be happy by being happy rather than exposing them to parents who are always torn, confused, angry or resentful. (Don’t know if you should be a stay at home mom or go back to work? Should you stay in your marriage for your kids? See above.)

2. Examine what is driving the choices you are making. Is it love or is it guilt? If the force is guilt, don’t do it. Guilt is corrosive and nothing good ever comes of it.

3. Change is good. It feels terrible and scary and confusing and nobody really likes it, but it’s quite possibly the only thing in life that you can be certain you’ll get a lot of. So many (wonderful, loving) parents strive to raise their children in a Stable Environment. I ask you – how can a kid become a person resilient to change is all they have ever known is stability? I’m not saying, “please mess up their lives”. I’m saying that if you mess up yours and feel you’re dragging them along for the ride, they will be OK.

4. Be honest. Maybe don’t be explicit, but do tell the truth. If your 8 year old walks in on the immediate aftermath of a screaming, raging fight and asks wide-eyed “what’s going on?” and your reply is “oh, absolutely nothing, honey, everything is peachy! ” you’re not protecting her. You’re teaching her that she can’t trust the most basic, most fundamental of all navigation tools: her own intuition.

Besides, kids know everything. Every. Thing. They might not fully understand it, or be able to articulate it, but they know. They know you have secrets, that you hide things from them, even that sometimes you’d love to get away from them. They don’t tell you that they know because they are trying to protect you too.

Photo: www.realsimple.com

November 2 (day of the dead)

I imagine Luca’s grandfather, Carlo, in front of the television set, engrossed in a soccer game. From the sofa, his leg kicks an imaginary ball, like a reflex. He yells instructions at the players. I picture other bits of his life: he goes to work in a gray suit and black briefcase, comes home every night for dinner, sits at the table and slices a piece of cheese for his grandson. With a wink (he was a man of few words) they agree not to tell his parents that he’s snacking before a meal.

Carlo’s wife loved him. He died 15 years ago, leaving her to survive in a world without him. (She turns 100 next year. The last time I saw her, she was furious at him. “What did he leave me here to do?”)

His grandson loved him too. Carlo left an indelible mark on Luca, who today sits in front of the television set, engrossed in a soccer game. He yells instructions at the players. I often believe Carlo is sitting beside him, wholeheartedly agreeing that, yes; Balotelli is indeed behaving like an ass.

http://www.mexicolore.co.uk

Make me a word

Have you ever heard of the word schadenfreude? It’s defined as “the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” I’ve often felt that I needed more complex words to more accurately express my feelings.

Jeffrey Eugenides, in his brilliant book Middlesex, says it best:

Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness”, “joy” or “regret”. Maybe the best proof that language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster”. Or “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy”. I'd like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in the middle age”. I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar”. I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.

Berth

I need space not a room or a house but a swath of the milky way not a backyard a national park not elbow room dream room not a puddle an ocean not a line in the sand the split of land from sky I need my eyes to see as far as they can I don’t know how someone so small can need something so big but I do

The key

I have an odds and ends drawer with rubber bands and matchboxes and birthday candles multicolored thumbtacks and an eraser white perfectly rectangular a black permanent marker and coins from other countries paper clips I found a key in there I plan to keep who knows when I’ll come across something I need to figure out how to open

Photo: www.digitaldesktopwallpaper.com

It doesn't matter

It doesn’t really matter all the things I remember how my father would carry me on his shoulders my mother’s box of rings the Eiffel tower the manta rays swimming in the light of the dock everything becomes a footnote something someone puts in parenthesis or leaves in the back of a closet (remember how I said I liked your tie?)

Photo: http://www.honusports.com

Magazines

On my living room table: my laptop, my glasses, a phone, a notebook, folders in different colors, a stapler, a pencil, a black marker and a huge stack of magazines.

I am going through said big stack of magazines page by page, ripping out interesting tidbits and putting them in places where I can put them to use.

I like O Magazine’s recommendations on books - which go into my book wish list on Amazon - and movies, that I enter into my Netflix cue so we only get really good picks we really want to watch.

I make a note of good blog or website recommendations, check them out, and then put my favorites up on the list on the right - because what’s the fun in finding something good if you’re not going to share it?

I have a file for products I might try one day or pretty things I like to look at and at least four fat binders (subdivided by ingredient) of recipes that deserve a whirl. Another for things I don’t know what to do with now but that I know someday will save the day (such as Real Simple’s “new uses for old things”). Another folder is for things Luca might find useful or interesting: for example, he just downloaded an app with international etiquette tips so he doesn’t do something considered rude in another country (never slurp soup directly from the bowl in Korea.)

Sunset Magazine is a treasure trove. I have a file filled with beautiful backyards that have contributed to turning my former strip of concrete into a place we want to hang out in. Two files for vacations – one for day trips and another for long weekends, all with places to discover up and down the West Coast. A dream file, for the day we build a green, sustainable house or go live on a lake or grow our own vegetables or design a Japanese garden.

Once all relevant information has been extracted and put in its proper place, then I can take my big stack of magazines and throw them in the recycling bin and get a cup of tea and put my feet up on my now mostly clear living room table.

If only I had a magazine to flip through.

Photo: www.sunset.com