On Parenthood & Gratitude...

***WARNING: This post is NAF. (N.ot A.bout F.ood)*** 

(And by *NAF*, I usually mean *SHINAE'S PERSONAL SOAPBOX*...)

I read a post on HuffPo this morning by Meg Tilly. It was an inaugural post for what she was hoping to be a published mother-daughter dialogue between her and her 20-something daughter. Though the post was just this side of excessively wistful and fanciful for me, I could relate a bit, as most mothers can I'm sure, with having hopes for our children and our interaction with them. I was otherwise neutral about the post itself, but it was some of the response comments that got under my skin.

A lot of relating, a lot of empathizing, some congratulating, and then a comment from someone who thought that Tilly's very public call for her daughter's participation in the blog was, well, selfish. Which was then met with kneejerk defense of Tilly by parents who believe that "Having a child has to be one of the most selfless acts one will ever commit..." and that parents *earn* the "right to be selfish" by doing X, Y and Z for their children.

*SIGH*. Ribeye burgers and summer rolls...

The sacrifices I make for those 
ungrateful children of mine...

I don't belong in that camp. This is not to say that children will never have very legitimate reasons to be grateful for the things their parents do. We often do. But the attitude of these people reminds me too much of the people whose gifts always come with the heavy price of expectation. Not to mention what is, to me, the inanity of the idea that having children is utterly selfless.

In my mind, having children, wanting to see your DNA manifest in the form of a tiny human, wanting to leave a legacy, wanting family, companionship and ties that are often inextricable, is as much an endeavor in selfishness as it is in selflessness. It's true that, once the children are here, we are often confronted with situations in which we are compelled to exercise altruism for them... 

But then again, they didn't, couldn't, consent to being put on this Earth. And they probably wouldn't have consented if they knew it would mean a lifetime of emotional burden and expectation from someone who believes that the self-serving act of having your own biological offspring indentures them to a life of unconditional gratitude and recompense. 

When you consider that our children are their own people, just as different from us as they are similar, and that many parents "sacrifice" to give their children what is important to them, and not necessarily their children, then this idea of "earned" selfishness becomes even more ludicrous. And the delusion some people undertake that parenting has somehow stripped them of any selfish (sometimes deeply so) motivation, even, or especially, when it comes to their children, is evidenced by their attitudes of entitlement.

Not to mention that this kind of thinking disregards the very rich and rewarding contribution our children make to our lives, just by their very existence. (But you won't hear these parents talk about how much they owe their children for simply being.)

There are many things my parents did, for/by/to me, for which I'm grateful. And then there are a few for which I'm not and for which they believe I should be. And while I hope my children will find many good and true reasons to be grateful to me as they grow into adulthood and eventually parenthood, I believe that whether their gratitude as felt and expressed is true, deep and genuine, will largely depend on whether my gifts to them came from a place of true, deep and genuine gratitude for what they have given, and continue to give, to me.

shinae

Sugar Cookies, Facebook & Frenemies...

My daughter Maddi turned 10 last December, and she has a facebook account, set up by me (I set one up for her brother as well) so I can be a part of her online life.  Say what you will about how premature or unnecessary it is, but I like to think myself a realist. And reality is that my kids will grow up living a big chunk of their lives online. 

I want to participate as much as reasonably possible in that life, and I'm hoping that a low key and nonjudgmental presence on their friends lists will give me a glimpse into their perspectives on life, friendship, and, even if it's not always positive, their relationship with me.

This past weekend, Mads and I baked some colored sugar cookies together and enjoyed a really lovely afternoon relating, cooperating and eventually gobbling more than a few cookies together. As always, I took my pics with my usual fussing, angling, framing and whatnot, and when I was done, Mads asked me to log onto her facebook page to upload this pic to her profile:

Status: "Made sugar cookies with my mom.
Took over an hour!!!!! But they tasted great."

Luckily, she's still at an age when she has relatively few secrets and allows me free and easy access to her page.  There were a couple of new notifications, a few new friends from school and her father's side of the family, and a new PM (private message) from a (girl) friend from school.  And the message was one of those *She said, SHE said* exchanges having to do with a third girlfriend, my daughter apparently the rope in a tug-of-war between warring factions known as pre-teen frenemies.

As an almost 40 year old woman, I have spent most of my life forging an uneasy peace with the mere idea of female friendships for this very reason. I don't really understand what spiritual, biological or evolutionary function it serves, this desire to possess, manipulate, and ultimately control another human being in this way.  But it's fairly rampant among young girls across cultural and socio-economic lines and sadly doesn't seem to temper itself well with age. 

My initial reaction was to talk with Mads then and there - to tell her that this is not how good friendships are built, that some people are toxic in the way they relate with others and that as much as we should empathize for the unique life path that made them that way, the best we can do is to be outwardly empathic to that person and yet inwardly compassionate enough to protect ourselves from their bile...

But then I remembered there's a reason why I knew to bring the butter to room temp before mixing the cookie dough, to keep the dough refrigerated between baking batches, and to let the cookies cool momentarily before removing them from the baking sheet... Because years of experience taught me that a cold stick of butter doesn't incorporate very well into dry ingredients; but also that if the butter gets too warm while mixed into the cookie dough, the cookies will spread too much in the baking process; and finally that the cookies have a good chance of bending, warping, or just plain falling apart if you try to remove them too quickly just out of the oven. I screwed up a lot of recipes before I observed and understood for myself the nature of certain ingredients and processes.  And in some cases, that meant a lot of fucked up cookies before I finally turned out a good one.

And while it gives me indigestion to know that I can't spare my child from the angst, betrayal, loneliness and confusion she will suffer, and cause others to suffer, in her journey to define and cultivate the positive, enriching and fulfilling friendships I hope for her to have, I sit well with the knowledge that I eventually stopped fucking up the cookies. And that I now have a handful of truly good, decent, fabulous, positive and encouraging woman friends with whom to share them.

That's not to say we'll never have the talk. I'm thinking chocolate chip in a few weeks will be a good time to gauge what she makes of the situation and to remind her again that the butter needs to sit out for a while before we begin...

shinae

Sometimes Food Is Not Like Life...

The words have been blocked for the last month or so, my mental and emotional resources having been delegated to the task of achieving peace about a situation over which I have less control and more anxiety than I’d like…

This post has *NOTHING* to do with spaghetti,
but that's what I made for dinner last night.

One unintended blessing in divorced parenting is the release of liability over the ex’s personality or character by way of their parenting style, among other things. No more having to edit, defend, explain, soften, justify or repackage the ideas of someone who, as it turns out, doesn’t share your values about the things that really matter.

The flip side curse is the loss of influence over the environment in which your children live and the messages they receive while they’re not with you. This is not to say that I don’t recognize my flaws as a parent. But hopefully by this age, I have made some conscious and thoughtful choices about the legacy I want to leave my children, naturally believing those things and ideas I consciously choose are better than the ones I don’t.  And it’s not to say that the ex doesn’t also believe that his conscious choices, often at odds with my own, are superior to their alternatives.  If the tween could have met, I suppose we’d still be together.

But all choices in life are made to the exclusion of others.  And the most important ones seem, without fail, to come with a healthy serving of the kind of pain that comes with growth and good change. True, it’s painful in moments when I miss my kids. But the choice to seek a better and truer life, for myself, and ultimately a better and truer example of living, for my children, had to be made at the expense of being an everyday presence in their lives. 

And when I do feel that pang that comes with the realization of their absence, I remind myself that worthwhile decisions often come with a heavy and constant price, almost as if to remind us how precious the outcome. While I can no longer live under the same roof with my children every day, they can now witness a much more healthy relationship than the one that would have been their reality, and ultimately the model for their future relationships, had I gone back.

WTF does this have to do with food??? Nothing, really.  I could make some overwrought analogy between food and life in this instance, but it feels lower than cheap to trivialize the heartache that visits everyone, particularly the children, when a marriage of 11 years falls apart irreparably. But I write to let it pass through me, so I can look, think and move forward and get back to the business of not writing so much about my personal drama.

Soooo… Let’s just call this entry one of those odd little rosemary-lemon palate cleansing sorbets that comes in the middle of your six course meal so you, rather, * I *, can let go of the flavors of the last three courses and refresh myself for the next.

(And you doubted my ability to squeeze a feeble food analogy into this post…)


shinae