Letters to the Editor
-
Awesome
If only more parents would seriously consider bringing their kids up in a less sheltered way. The next generation might just be a little less scared of their shadows than the current one.
With a line of work as mobile as writing, and a mom to help you out, you're in a great position to have the best of both worlds. Don't waste the opportunity while it lasts.
-
Do it! Go Amanda Go!
I hope Amanda goes. I'm sure if she does, there will be moments of regret and stress and tears before bedtime. But think of all the pluses--a unique time together with her mother (who will not be 57 forever), a unique appreciation of how other cultures care and enjoy children, and a chance to spread her winds and gather creative ideas when the journey is over. Life gives us so few opportunities like this. I hope Amanda decides to go.
-
A less sheltered way of bringing up children
Let them stay at my apartment. We have actual crime in my neighborhood; the sounds you'll hear are those of sirens. You know, MOST kids are not "sheltered" at their little daycares and in their little suburban yards. Most kids know quite a bit about the big, bad world out there because they've been put in substandard childcare, because their neighborhoods and schools aren't safe, because Mommy and Daddy can't pretend to provide security for them. Taking the kids to Europe is hardly going to keep them from being coddled little rich kids. I'm sure they won't be afraid of their shadows, though--their sense of entitlement will ward off all fear.
-
Empaty for the author, and for the kids
I read the first paragraph about "glasses of Chardonnay" & "some precious antiques" and the visit out of state for the "Christmas holidays, ... visiting Mom in Savannah, Ga."
But I kept the bile down and continued to read.
Grandma expressing "I wish I could be with them all the time,"
And Ms. Ward miss-reading that and the brainstorm hitting so that she replied and "you can watch them all the time."
But I tried for empathy, because this girl is wrong and I'm not strong enough to meet up with her and shake any sense into her.
Then I saw she was serious. and I thought nope - the empathy needs to be for those kids.
I thought about the six years I grew up in foster homes, age 6 mos. to 6 years old. Moving from house to house, talk about new and varied and exotic - nothing like! and all paid for by the state!
Never knowing if the kids who were your family today would be the family you woke up to tomorrow. Never knowing if the next family spoke Spanish or English till you got there and were denied food because 'Butter' kept coming out in the wrong tongue.
Fearing bathrooms - the place I transfered all my baby-viewed move-anxiety to, so that now at age fifty I STILL cannot feel comfortable taking a shower!
Then I read through each and every letter post and you know,
the only one I want to rail at now is the editors of this site.
Shame on you for encouraging this tripe.
Shame. Shame.
-
boo freaking hoo, lady
ok the subject about says it all, but really, salon, we're tired of this. i get suckered in by thinking perhaps this mommy author has some enlightened and unique perspective, but wind up disgusted every time. i hope to never have to read another essay whose thesis can be summed up "complaining about all my blessings and advantages". why did this author even have children? damn.
-
What IS your job?
This past summer, my husband and I put our house on the market, put a bunch of furniture into storage, and moved our two preschoolers (2 and 4 at the time) from the US to Cairo, Egypt. We are barely middle class folks; this moved was funded by my now-employer, who also gives us furnished housing, six weeks of annual leave including airfare for the four of us back to the US, a generous number of paid holidays during the year that have allowed us to do some fascinating travel within Egypt, a salary that means we can afford a part-time housekeeper and for my husband to take some time off from working, and paid tuition for my kids at the nearby excellent American school. My kids currently attend a fantastic English language Montessori school that costs only a few hundred dollars a month. All this and I'm hardly a superstar in my field, just a regular working person only out of grad school a few years.
I'm don't know what job makes you "barely middle class" with all of the above, but I. want. that. job.
Seriously. Tell me what it is and I'll start applying to grad schools tomorrow.
This conversation reminds me a lot of the "naked around the kids" letter Cary Tennis answered a while ago. Half the letters were "scar them for life, don't even try it" and the other half were "did it all the time, no biggie."
It seems like the biggest necessity for this to work is the desire for this to work.
-
I Understand
First of all, I understand what Ms. Eyre Ward is going through. Just because she's a writer and has a flexible schedule doesn't translate into her having oodles of money (or at least it doesn't for me). Perhaps she does. Even if she does, I do feel a bit sorry for her, though not as sorry for women who have fewer possibilities open to them, such as single mothers, mothers with little income, etc. But just because her situation isn't AS dire as someone else's doesn't mean she isn't missing out of some things because she elected to be someone's mother.
I'm also a writer, and I can say, as a recent mother of two, it's pretty hard to get a chance to read a book, take a shower, read a book, write a page--you know, all the things that make writers happy. Most people maybe read a few books a year, but writers read tons, and if you're a nerdy-girl used to reading upwards of 50 books a year and it drops down to 5 or 6, you can feel pretty depressed. This situation obviously isn't as dire as the woman trying to f**king feed her kids, but that's a given. A woman trying to feed her kids wouldn't be writing this article in the first place (and if you want that info, I know exactly where you can get it, and can show you in the flesh, but trust me, you won't be getting that story from the safety of your laptop).
That said, I've had to move my toddlers from one place to another to work--it's not great. Not by a long shot. You can manage, but all you'll be doing is managing--and that is with HELP from my mother...I've been to lots of cool places with my kids, but kids really do thrive on stability.
Since your husband sounds like a supportive guy, and your mother like a supportive mother, here's my suggestion: YOU go to a place every once in a while and write, read, whatever. A week at a time, if your kids are over 2 years old--depending on the nature of the kids. You need time to recharge, figure out what makes your writing work (and yes, I know who you are, and what you've written) and why you're still here. It is important.
I'm NOT an upperclass white woman (I'm not white at all, nor upperclass), and I still say you deserve it. Everyone deserves to fulfill themselves. Your children deserve it, too. You can have everything, as the saying goes, but not everything at once. Let your children have the stability, but you go off when you need to and do what you need to do. Dad can watch the kids for a week or so. He's not a moron.
And don't mind the people on these boards. The fact that people are jealous of your situation means they WANT to be in your shoes. Hell, I want to be in your shoes! You've got choices. Pick one.