Quake
[admin / January 10th, 2011 / Young Bright Things ]
My Kiddo was  sick today. At seven a.m. this morning he said, “Mama, will you stay home with me?”  I called my  boss and  left a message then lied down with my son on his bed and rubbed his back until he feel asleep again.
He slept seven hours.
I live with a constant nagging  fear  I may cease to sustain  the precarious balancing act that’s my life: kid, work, writing.
I’m always tired. “Worried” Â is my second middle name. Â
I once had a boss who said I might not have a job to return to the next day if  I stayed home with my sick son. That was 2005. My son was eight years old. Not only did I have no one to babysit at the time, nor do I usually,  my son was covered with a rash and had a fever. Panic stricken, torn between the  fear I’d lose my job and my very real maternal instincts,  I called  my grandmother.
What my grandmother said was, “You get out of that place right now.” And I did. Because she made it possible.
I keep seeing women lying in beds incapacitated, struggling for their lives. Â Brave women. Strong women. Women I respect.
I see Gabrielle Giffords. I see my grandmother.
This week, I felt compelled  to change my  profile picture  on Facebook. It’s simply words written in marker on a piece of  paper. “Sarah  Palin doesn’t speak for me. ”  But then she never spoke for me. I’m not a Mama Grizzly, and  I resent anyone who might mislabel me one. Look, I’d love a woman in charge who  spoke on my behalf.  I’d love that. I’d. Love. It.
I’ll tell you who’d have my vote for President. Susie Bright. She’d have my vote in a New York Minute.
I transmit from a cottage in Republican country. We’re out numbered. But I haven’t once felt threatened here. Perhaps offended. Perhaps pissed  the day a man  marched into my office  and claimed he wished he could kill President Obama.
“I wish I could get away with it,” he said. “I hate that sonofabitch.”
The other day I saw a rude anti-Obama bumpersticker on the back of a car while waiting for a  light. Â
I said  to my son,  ”I want  to  flip this guy off.”
“I know,” my son said, and he sat forward in his seat. Â ”I’m sick of all this anti-Obama stuff.”
The night Americans elected Barack Obama the 44th  President of the United States,  my son and I  fell into each others arms and wept. We stood to our feet and danced about our living room.  We danced holding hands. We smiled and cried and danced.
I remember I looked at my son and said, “I’m so happy.”
The Kiddo  said, “Me too, Mom.” Â
At school, my son says his classmates boo everytime President Obama comes up except for this one kid who doesn’t. Wonder which kid that is?  Same kid  never cheers  for Sarah Palin while the rest of  his classmates do.
So I sit at a stop light the other day wanting to flip the bird at this guy ahead of me for his rude anti-Obama bumpersticker, and my son sits forward in his seat waiting to see what I’ll do, and like so many other times since he was born, I recognize  a moment to teach my son something about diplomacy.  Something about what it means to live in a free country.
I say, “I want to flip this guy off, but what good would it do? I don’t like his bumper sticker.  So what? I get rude.  Then  what? Anyway, he has just as much right to have that bumper sticker as I do to have whatever bumper sticker I want. Right, honey?”
“Right,” my son  said.
Childen are monkeys. They mirror us, they mimic.
Last fall,  while visiting an ex boyfriend  in Denver, a nine-year-old child told me she hated President Obama because he’d said America wasn’t  a Christian country.
“It’s not,” I said. Â ”America is a free country in which we can believe and worship any way we want.”
The look this child  gave me  indicated  she believed I was the Anti-Christ. Or worse, a liberal.  Sure. I’m going to Hell.
I’m sure her parents told her I would.
Opportunities present themselves, you know,  when you wish you could instill empathy and intellect in other people’s children. You wish you could meet them in the eye. You wish you could shake them.  Like the other day, I wanted to tell another parent’s  homophobic child,  ”There’s nothing wrong with homosexuals. It’s human, it’s natural, it’s as beautiful as any other expression of human sexuality and love.”   But the situation wasn’t appropriate. And so I felt  worse than impotent.
What do I do? I write a column. I write other stuff too.  I’m doing  as best by my  kid  as  possible.
But I’m no Susie Bright, people. I’m no Gabrielle Giffords. I’m not my grandmother.
I love you.
Thank you for continuing to write tender, brilliant essays here when we all know you are juggling so much in your life.
You sound like a wonderful mother. Honestly I’m a little jealous of your son’s relationship with you–my mother is incredibly conservative (part of the religious right, no joke) and we have a lot of interpersonal issues because of that.
Hi Dawn,
Hey sweet lady.
How are you? Yes. I juggle quite a bit, and so do many-many other people. I don’t believe it’s easy for anyone.
I feel lucky to write for the PANK blog. Huge honor.
Wouldn’t that be weird if my son was a huge conservative? Haha.
I’m sorry to hear about your interpersonal issues with your Mom. That’s tough. My parents and I never discuss politics or religion either. It kills me how many parents aren’t willing or able to engage their children in meaningful conversations and/or respect their children’s opinions. Painful.
and with this column, you are now my favorite person in the world.
You can speak for me anytime you’d like.
Your son is very lucky to have such a wise woman shaping him. He will grow up to become a fine man thanks to you.
Pax, okay, so the Kiddo’s been sick two days and I’m running on no sleep here, and you just made me cry with your words above-fore-mentioned. But it’s not just that I’m tired. You made my day with what you said. Thank you. You’re an amazing supportive friend. Love. You.
And I love you for writing this.
I work at a children’s library in a semi-conservative area. Hearing the six year-old home schooled children spout off near obscenities about things they know they don’t understand is gut wrenching… But I do what I can at story time. I treat them with love. And even though they have no idea I may disagree with their parents, we still love each other strongly.
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for reading my column this week and sharing your thoughts. I’m grateful, as I’m sure many parents are, for the tender and emapthetic way you interact with children. You’re a gift. And story time! Libraries! Wonderful teachers, as are you. Thank you. Hope you enjoy a happy and productive week.
Dear Lisa,
I just happened upon this today and love love LOVE it. As a mother of a new person (ok, he’s a “big boy” at 2 1/2, but he’s still new at being a person), I get anxious about what’s going to stick in his brain. But you and your son have given me hope that localized social pressures may not be as big a threat to my kid’s values and beliefs after all! Yay for that!
Also, being a mother/worker/writer, it’s awesome to see someone present that side of reality. It IS a precarious balancing act–”Am I doing the right thing for my child, am I doing the right thing for me, am I being a good mother, am I being a responsible adult, am I investing enough time in my art, am I investing TOO much time, what am I making for dinner, should I let him watch a movie because I want to write a blog piece, I can’t stay up and write because I have to go to work early tomorrow, I can’t reduce my hours because husband is in school, I dislike my job but the market is bad so I need it, I need to work out more, I need to improve my skills for work, I need to submit my pieces more often, I NEED TO HUG MY KID…” You get it, though.
Thank you!
Katie
Hi Katie,
Thank you so much for reading my column and sharing your thoughts with me. You sound like someone I should get to know better! At least we share much in common. I admire and respect women like yourself and wish you the best of luck. I think the best thing we can do for our kids is listen to them. Answer their questions. Listen. Assure them we are a safe place, someone who listens and guides without judgement. We want them to trust us. Maybe you’d like this column I wrote a couple months back.
http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/?p=6469
Katie, I appreciate your comments and hope I hear from you again. Take care.
Alana