Holiday Greetings

I hope these holiday greetings find you savoring some of the peace of these holy days. I’m writing this letter in our dining room which is also my “office.” In front of me is a lovely stone statue of a woman whose head Gabriel just broke off. To my right, on the floor, are a small yellow school bus, a Thomas the Tank Engine, and a copy of Good Night Moon. Just beyond those, hanging over a chair in the living room, is Noah’s tae kwan do uniform, which needs a patch sewn onto it. In a place of honor on the coffee table is a lampshade with the lid of a teapot glued onto it, which was Jacob’s anniversary present to us. And on a chair to my left are three pairs of Martin’s pants that need to be taken to the dry cleaners and a dried flower arrangement knocked over by the cats. As I sit and contemplate this scene, I am reminded of a saying I heard earlier this year—“It’s Good to be the Queen.”

Martin told me about this saying. It’s actually from the web site http://itsgoodtobethequeen.com that “celebrates” mothers of “only boys” in their efforts to “raise responsible and respectful men.” Yes, well. I liked this idea at first. I even got a little refrigerator magnet that says “It’s Good to be the Queen,” and I put it right next to my “Because I’m the Mother—That’s Why” magnet. I tried to feel “empowered” by being the “only source of estrogen” in my “castle.” After a while, though, I started to detect a flaw in this idea. The flaw is that it’s no good being The Queen if you are the only one who thinks you are The Queen. Being The Queen depends upon having subjects, not a refrigerator magnet. A real Queen would not have to listen to remarks like, “You’re a good cook, Mama, except when you make things that are disgusting.” Or, when asking one of the princes why they have not scooped out the litter boxes, hear, “No offense, Mama, but I really think that should be your job.” I didn’t see anything on The Queen web site about the honor of being a pregnant female in a house full of males, but last year, when Jacob asked Martin, “Why is Mama’s behind shaped like that?” and Martin, gesturing towards my stomach, said, “See here, where her belly is sticking out so much? Her behind has to be that big to balance it out, or she would fall over,” I myself felt more like a cow than a Queen.

Maybe the Queen thing works for some women. My suspicion, though, is that it’s a way for mothers of boys to pretend that they aren’t really just frustrated women trying to understand why everyone in their house smells weird, eats too loudly, and thinks it’s really funny to see how many days in a row they can wear the same pair of socks. (It’s three weeks, as Noah told me. “But I had to sort of bang them against the wall before I could wear them because they had gotten kind of stiff”). In all honesty, what I really think when I read things about parenting, or talk to other people about their family lives, is that most of the time we are asking ourselves, “Am I doing this right? Are we happy enough? Healthy enough? Is everyone really okay?”

I don’t know the answers to these questions. And as Garrison Keillor says, “Life doesn’t stand still. We ask the big questions, but by the time we get close to answering them, we’ve moved on.” So the smaller things are easier to talk about. Noah, for example, who is 10, is really into his fish and his aquariums. Sometimes I’m afraid he’s going to become one of those pale adolescents who keeps lizards or some other creature that feeds on live rodents, but for now he loves his fish, and is happy to talk about them, in great detail, to anyone who’s interested. He’s weird and funny and intense, and seems to become more so as the years go by. He made me promise not to tell anyone, but he was chosen “coolest kid in his class” last year. He’s also a fabulous big brother to Gabriel, who likes to stand at the piano bench and bounce up and down while Noah plays (very loudly). Noah definitely gets the most smiles from Gabe, who thinks his big brother has hung the moon.

Jacob is in 3rd grade, and is very into building things. Actually, he likes “found objects,” meaning that he collects junk and makes stuff out of it. We all know not to leave anything lying around in our house or Jacob will smuggle it downstairs and glue it to something. He’s really good at building. He recently assembled a table and some chairs that have been sitting in the back of our garage for 8 years. He also began riding his bike around the neighborhood by himself this summer, which, if it had been up to me, would never have happened. But Martin encouraged him in this without telling me about it, and one afternoon when he was at work, Jacob sidled out the door with his helmet, and, without making eye contact, said that he was “going to ride around the block.” “Are you kidding me?” I said. “Mama,” he said, “Papa would let me do it and Papa would be proud of me.” So I had to let him go. For parents who let their kids ride all over their neighborhoods, this doesn’t sound like a big deal. But there aren’t any sidewalks where we live, and people aren’t used to kids on bikes, and I’m not used to him actually growing up, so it was a big deal for me. But he was so proud and determined, and he is, as he keeps telling me, “Eight years old.” This summer I realized that Noah and Jacob are still young, but they’re not really little anymore.

Gabriel is little. He turned 1 in November, and is a cheerful, calm, strong boy. We’re not completely sure where he came from, because he’s large, blue-eyed, and very easy-going. He loves his brothers and is happiest when he’s right in the middle of whatever they are doing. He is indeed the light of our lives, and there’s a completeness about our family that we never anticipated. I had a 4-month maternity leave after he was born, and then worked half-time for another 6 months. Now I’m back to working full-time, but I can do part of that at home. Martin also has a flexible schedule both for his practice and his work with the Center for Men and Masculinity http://menandmasculinity.com, and we’ve been blessed with a wonderful babysitter who comes to our home three mornings a week. So it’s hectic sometimes, but we are both doing work that feels rewarding and engaging, and we feel lucky to be able to manage our time as we do. A friend said to me this summer, “When you have young children, the days are long but the years are short,” and does that ever feel true.

This year, I am somehow more aware than ever that parenting is one long, ongoing prayer. One of the guiding quotes of my life is by Meister Eckhart who said, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘Thank You,’ that would be sufficient.” Outside our living room window the sun is setting, and the winter sky is breathtakingly lovely. And for this moment I think, “Yes, we’re all okay, we’re doing it right, we have more than enough.” So today and everyday, I am saying ‘Thank You’ for this most blessed life, for those we love, near and far, and for all the things that hold us together.