Fuck You, Tina Fey, or, The Mother's Prayer, Interpreted

When Tina Fey’s book Bossypants (Little, Brown & Company, 2011) came out, I ignored it, because I’m sick of her. She is already ubiquitous and redundant, and her glammed-up cover photos for fashion magazines are uninspired; she can’t even be bothered to have her own style or wear a great suit, she just lets ‘em tart her up so she can sell, sell, sell.

She had an article in The New Yorker for Valentine’s Day called “Confessions of a Juggler,” (thank you, Inner Monoblog for the text!) that pretended to concern itself with the pressured life of the working mother (as opposed, apparently, to mothers who are in their homes watching television and dicking around all fucking day) but in reality was just Fey’s frantic, limited, and late-to-the-party realizations about the incongruence of Hollywood and contemporary motherhood. Her opening quip that “It’s less dangerous to draw a cartoon of Allah French-kissing Uncle Sam… than it is to speak honestly about this topic [of working moms]” was overwrought, not true, and in poor taste.

Her assertion in the New Yorker that she has “the same struggles as any working parent” is offensive not because, as she says, she “just happens to be working at [her] dream job,” but because she has a million, billion dollars, so she in fact does not have any of the same struggles as most working parents, whose chief struggle is almost always money and the unlimited tangential stresses there from. Fey’s children can have everything they want to eat, soccer and swimming and ballet and French, two pairs or ten pairs of shoes that fit, the school of Fey’s choosing, the Fire Island house and vacation and camp, therapy, play dates, nannies, and Fey and her husband get to go out in the evening as often as they would like. Does that lifestyle sound familiar? I thought not!

It’s gross for wealthy people to compare themselves to working class people. It’s revolting. And let’s not even parse that bit about how “large families have become a status symbol” of what people can afford. You can afford it, Fey, everybody knows that.

But it’s also a loutishly insensitive thing to say exactly because she is working at her dream job, which is qualitatively, psychologically, emotionally, profoundly different from working at a job that sucks. And it’s really different from being a working parent who has no job and is desperately searching for one. So, you know, I’m working up to Shut up, Tina Fey, at this point.

The rest of the article was non-compelling because Fey had nothing new to add to a conversation that is, I assure you, not dangerous; women of all ages, all over my neighborhood, all over Facebook, email, and the phone, talk about working outside the home and inside it, and why that’s like, stressful, in any combination, all the time. What is sad is how Fey’s lack of awareness of that just makes her look like she has no friends.

But let’s get to the point, to the Fuck You, Tina Fey.

As I say, I was determinedly ignoring her book when I stumbled on this great blog Kyriolexi while seeking out definitions of the relatively new term ‘neurodiversity’ for something else I’m writing. I quote:

So this? Is never okay.

“May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.” - Fey, in her stupid essay

It doesn’t surprise me that someone would say such a thing. Ignorance and victim-blaming abound whenever child abuse, especially sexual abuse, is discussed. I am, however, slightly appalled at the uncritical praise this essay is receiving all over the internet, with little or no acknowledgement of the deeply offensive nature of this line, which in one sentence summarizes, reinforces, and solidifies the stigma and pain felt by those who have been harmed by childhood sexual abuse, and the fear that can linger in the mind of even the most self-confident survivor: maybe this happened to me because there’s something wrong with me. -Kyriolexy

Huh? I said. What the hell is this about? I read through the rest of the post and found out. And then I read the piece, “The Mother’s Prayer..,” and I was disgusted, though I don’t know why I was even surprised.

Sexual abuse of children is, to say the least, never, ever funny; not ever. But I’m not writing about sexual abuse, it’s not my field, and what’s wrong with Fey’s “Prayer,” (ugh, ugh, ugh,) is not just the one line; the whole piece is offensive, and especially the word ‘damage,’ not only with regard to sexual abuse, but as it relates to all children who struggle, and who are marginalized, and in how Fey uses the word to perpetuate pariah-ism, making gobs of cash while she’s at it.

Tina Fey is shaking her moneymaker, and I don’t resent her that part of it; I want a book contract, too; wha, wha, wha! What I resent (and here I go, I’m gonna be a sanctimommy, I’m gonna judge,) is that Fey is making her money taking advantage of the very women she blatantly pretends, in the New Yorker piece, to have as her peers, and selling those women’s children down the river in the process. I’m a mother. I’m her age (or I’m older by like four or five years.) I have stood next to her and had a glass of crap wine on the dock at Fire Island because my cousin has a house there that I get to visit. But nobody looking at me and at Fey could guess that; you don’t know that I’m not rich, you just know that she’s famous, I’m not. She’s a cultural leader, it is painful to say. I’m as angry about this as I was when Oprah threw a fucking parade for James Frey’s awful, stupid, lying, badly written fake book. Women are looking to Oprah to see what to read, and they are looking to Fey to see what to think, and Fey is saying, Think privilege! Think discrimination! Think me, Me, ME!!!

I was shocked when a friend I often call The Philosopher Mom, who is among the most political, well-read, informed people I know (there are four of them) posted the piece on her Facebook page. But I was glad it was she, because she’s about the only person I know whose postings I can fire back at without reservation.

I responded:

Jessica Steiner Sorry, i still can't abide the "for it's the damage that draws the creepy soccer coach's eye..." which translates as, ‘better your broken kid than mine,’ mentality. Not to mention the mutually exclusive 'beautiful but not damaged,' based on the assumption that beauty is evidence and security and damage is for-never. Fuck Tina Fey. Sorry.

Then I added:

Jessica Steiner oh and BTW both my male and female children are beautiful AND damaged and EVEN rich people's kids are in danger of predators. [Hon,] i know you will not take this personally. thanks for the vent.

And then I learned that the husband of a woman I’d grown up with had killed himself.

How could this possibly be relevant? Stay with me.

I will call the woman Beth. I grew up in a youth movement by whose standards today I’d be considered Tea Party material. This organization thirty years ago, as I knew it, was a vibrant, insular group of about one hundred and twenty kids, teens, and young adults forming an ethically driven community around such radical ideals as sharing, helping, heritage, hiking, debate, discussion, folk dancing, pot smoking and arts and crafts. Participants who could claim Israeli parentage were considered both exotics and the real deal. Beth was one of those. When I knew her she was near legal drinking age, tan, chestnut haired, stocky, beautiful, whip smart, a gifted musician, cuddly, popular, and super responsible, plus she spoke Hebrew with a charming lisp; I loved her and was filled with seething jealousy of her at the same time. She was my summer camp counselor and one of the proudest days of my twelve year old life was when she let me wear her red carpenter pants and her white sweat shirt with the red heart on the front after Shabbat on an unseasonably chilly Friday night.

The information about Beth’s husband came to me through a friend who’d also grown up under Beth’s tutelage. I responded to her email that I felt a sense of sliding off reality. That nothing is what it seems. I had heard over the years that Beth had a wonderful, successful husband, and healthy, advancing children, a beautiful home, and was a person of stature in her professional field; I had believed that Beth’s life was perfect.

Why would I believe that of anybody? Because that’s what we’re all trained to believe; that life can be perfect.

Let me just get this out right now: fuck that.

I had just been discussing the privation and despair inherent in such vicious one-ups-manship as Fey is purporting, with yet another mom, a member of my support group, who has a son like mine. Though our two boys have different diagnoses, they are both high-strung, reactive, prone to harrowing, embarrassing outbursts. My son has Asperger’s Syndrome, Sensory Processing Disorder, and Anxiety, among other things.

This mom and I, we love our support group friends, and our non-support-group friends who are supportive, but mothering young boys with stress-induced behavior challenges is qualitatively different from parenting boys with other disabilities, and it is an experience that must be had to be understood. And we often, in spite even of each other, feel alone.

I realized, reminiscing about Beth, that I’ve always felt this way; alone. I’m a chronic outsider. The sensation has attached itself to my experience of mothering a boy who keeps me out of the mom-club, even out of the special-needs-moms-club, to some degree. Like, alone, aloner…

And when Philosopher Mom reposted that yammering, ham-handed, oafish, self-aggrandizing piece of bullshit by Fey that she’s trying to pass off as wit; I felt alonest.

Possibly worst of all, I also felt cosmically, swooningly bored, because I just can’t believe that Fey has nothing any newer or smarter or funnier (the “Prayer” is not, actually, that funny,) to say than what boils down to I’m pretending I think I’m lame so I can say how rich and awesome I am and you suckers all think I’m your friend!

What hurts is the way people throw around that word damage, and don’t care about my boy. What’s embarrassing is that at my advanced age, I still carry a paranoid fantasy that other people are perfect and happy and that I’m getting left out. Nevertheless, Fey’s sleazy, elitist, sub-par humor still smacks of desperate pandering to the in-crowd.

Philosopher Mom says I’m missing the point. On Fey’s use of the word ‘damage,’ PM said, “[Fey] may not have chosen super-consciously, but damage is a word that applies when something traumatic has happened to someone, not when someone has problems that arose from the genes.”

Despite PM’s assertion that predators look for psychic “chinks in the armor,” which I’m sure is right, and she’s in tune with Kyriolexi’s essay, to that extent, ‘damage’ is an orange-alert word on the disability radar; it bespeaks an attitude toward individuals as damaged goods, as second rate rejects, and I believe that Fey has a much more sinister, eugenic message in mind than PM has considered.

I believe this stupid excuse for satire is Fey saying, Ewe, there’s that damaged kid! I’m sure glad my kid isn’t that kind of loser! Come on over here, honey, so you don’t catch anything nasty, or ugly, or weakening! And everybody else just laughs and laughs…

Granted, others who responded to Philosopher Mom’s posting gave me my due; if they disagreed in that lighten up! kind of way, they were mild about it. One person disagreed with me but tempered it by ‘sending love,’ so as not to hurt any feelings. Which is fine. Nobody called me a C U Next Tuesday, so that’s good.

By the way, the best treatment right now of the topic of careless word hurling is Robert Rummel-Hudson’s Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords: Just a word. Which is on www.schuylersmonsterblog.com so check that out.

Tina Fey's Fire Island house is around the corner from my cousin’s, which I visit with my family from time to wonderful time. I could very easily walk up to Fey and say, Your writing is bad. Your feelings are stupid. Your work is pretentious and offensive. Good-bye. And anyone could assume I'd do that out of jealousy; a dent in my reputation well worth it.

What I wonder, though, is what lurks inside a woman of Fey’s career and financial stature, that brings her so far down, that makes her so insecure she’s compelled to chatter on and on about presumed shopping trips to Hollister and slamming cab doors with indignation at her daughter’s future imagined sleights? As for that speculative business of “Architecht? Midwife? Golf course designer?” If Fey’s daughter grows up to be a dowdy woman in Wrangler jeans working at Home Depot, Fey will have to be put into a medically induced coma. All I can imagine on reading the “Prayer” is Fey, standing in her office, sticking her fingers in her ears and screaming LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAA (rather like my Autistic son, actually,) so the mean voices of reality won’t get in and tell her the bad news; that none of us actually has a direct line to God and nobody knows what is in store for their child, no matter how many grapes we cut up, no matter where we shop, no matter how hard wish that nothing will fuck up our lives.

I’d like to walk over to Fey on the dock and be like, Really? This is all you've become? Just the same kind of stuck up idiot who crapped on you in junior high?

And then I’m like, Maybe when I see Fey I will just run up to her and breathe in her face and yell FAILED WRITER GERMS! FAILED MOTHER GERMS! MIDDLE CLASS VIRUS! In fact maybe I’ll tell my Autistic kid to go give her perfect, in-tact kid’s elbow a good, gross lick.

Alas, compare and despair, as Stuart Smiley used to say. It does not make me feel better to know that Beth has officially experienced cosmic proportion loss, nor would it gratify me if heartbreak happened to Fey. It doesn’t level the karma or balance the scales because I am not tallying up like that. The truth is that I am happy. I’m crazy about my son exactly as he is even when his struggles defeat my best efforts, I gaze upon and relish my daughter who will not grow out of this family unscathed, I’m in love with my husband, we have enough money, blab la blab la blab la. I just want something out of all this.

I feel like it’s best to assume that everybody has terrible shit in their lives, even people who really, really seem not to, who seem untouched by hardship. Not because it will make me kinder; I don’t want to be kinder, I don’t care about that. I guess I just want to be less horrified, less shocked. I would like things to make sense once in a while. I would like Tina Fey to use her savvy and her humor and her influence for good, and enlightenment, not for sucking the dick of the status quo, and certainly not for making other mothers feel like shit. I would like to wish Tina Fey well. I’d like to respect her. She has to respect me first, though, because I’m supposed to buy the book to pay for the house on Fire Island.

But for $26.99? Fuck you, Tina Fey.

What's Good

M smells like pee in the morning, his own sweet pee, vaguely of breast milk, musky, distinctive as rain. His diaper's got to weigh 5 pounds. But his hair still smells like soap from last night's bath, his breath as clean and clear as tears. He is compelled to cry on waking up, no matter what, it seems; a noise that arches like a cat's back, snapping the morning into broken pieces and I crack awake to it.

"Noo-ooo!" is the first thing out of him, then a sob, then pitifully, in the dark, "mommy..."

"Sh! SH! SH!" I hiss. "I'm coming to you! Don't wake up the baby!" and I fight my way out of bed, instantly cold and sorry for myself. I pull him out of his crib clutching Bluey the blanket, and I take his quilt for me. We assume the position in the nursey chair, and I hastily wrap the little quilt around my shoulders while he tucks Bluey around his own body, laying on his side across my lap, mouth open, waiting for the booby, and blump, there it is. It seems to fall out of my pajamas these days without even being asked.

Eyes closed, he latches on with quiet relish, one hand delicately holding the ribbony edge of Bluey and stroking it a little with one finger, while in the other hand he keeps his binky, at the ready to replace the boob when he's finished. I feel his body settling into mine, and my body, into the chair, curving around him, warming up under the little quilt and M's skin, weight, heat.

The light outside starts to change; I've no idea what time it could be, but make out, squinting through a camouflage of random baby socks, nearly 6, on the digital clock. It's perfect. He's sleeping later these days, 6 is a luxury; but it's still early enough that I don't have to transfer him back into the crib and start the day right this minute. I stay where I am, drop my chin to my chest, and doze off with him, inhaling him, relieved, and greatful.

Half an hour later, he's still deeply asleep, and I decide to risk all this peace for a major indulgence; would he stay asleep if I carefully deposit him back in his crib, would they all stay asleep long enough for me to watch the news and eat a bowl of cold cereal.... all by myself?

I sneak my arms under his shoulders and hips and gingerly lift him up, then over the side of the crib and in, laying all 35 pounds of him out as gently as if he were 3 weeks old. I tuck Petey-Pie Penguin under Bluey, and M's arm creeps out to pull Petey even closer; he presses himself down into the mattress. My good boy. My beauty boy. For a moment I consider getting in the crib with him; B has done it, it's a good crib.

I want the news. Even for just ten minutes, I'll take a traffic report, weather, anything.

But as I tip-toe toward the door, Little H stirs; she only moves in her sleep if she's about to wake up. I wait, foot in the air; maybe not this time? Maybe she'll just shimmy a little and burrough back in?

"Wheeeeee," she croons, pitched just like a kitten, and without opening her eyes she sits right up in her gigantic big-girl crib, lower-lip protruding in insult, her face hot, smelling of camphor and sunflower lotion, her cheeks red and velvety. I scoop her up quickly, tuck a binky back in, and deposit her into the big bed alongside B, and cover her up.

Shirtless and stretched out for miles, his long, curly, mauvey-gray hair fanning across the blue pillow, the dawn light on him, he looks like a rock star; I poke him. He opens one blue, confused eye. I point at Little H, who is just about back to sleep next to him, laying on her side with her nose in his neck. I touch my finger to my lips. He nods, and crosses an arm over her, draws his legs up a little to make a bumper of his body. She works her binky for a moment, then lets out a little foal-whinny, the binky falling out, her little lips breath in angelic o's.

I look at them.
I turn and look at M.
My goodies. My goody darlings. They are so good, all three. How lucky I am. How the sight of thier faces feels like a kiss on my heart, on the real inside of my body.

I step out of the room on the floor's sweet spots that don't creak, and close the door all the way. I continue to walk lightly into the kitchen as if for good measure. There is my favorite cereal, cereal being my single favorite food in the world. This particular one looks just like dog food, but it's so crunchy and yummy. I could eat it a box at a time. I pour a huge bowlful and drown it in milk, I pick out the good spoon, and take a big, cold, delicious bite. I crunch and crunch, and munch along into the living room.

And who greets me there but my sad-sack Pit Bull, ears pressed back to her head in welcome, twisting onto her back in the big chair where she lay, her smooth, white, ropey-muscled chest open for my hand, her flat head upside down on the armrest, pink chin in the air, her rhumey eyes say, 'I am good, you know, I am. Give me something...'

I set down my bowl, kneel, and press my cheek to her chest, rubbing her side hard with the back of my hand as if starting a fire. I kiss her pink, musty old dog chin. I deposit one ring of cereal into her yellowing sabre-toothed chops. Her tail thuds consistently against the upholstery.

"Can I eat my cereal?"
'Ohh, all right.'

It's light out now, but softly so. I open the blinds, and turn on the tv; news. Luscious news. Hillary is ahead. A healthy baby girl was born in the Midtown tunnel and will be named Hector. No one died in any of the night's shootings. The market closed up. The Grand Central is wide open coming in and out of the city right now, and the forecast has a spot of rain for the morning, but otherwise, looks good.

Fuck 'em If They Can't Take A Joke

Apparently my last couple of postings scared the crap out of everybody; and I thought it was comedy! Whoops! But the flood of concerned emails has been downright heartwarmimg. Here are a few faves.

Mommy-pal Kiersten gets Babyweekly, an e-newsletter that had this mind-boggling wisdom to offer on stressful moments, and she forwarded it to me thusly;

“I thought you’d get a kick out of this."

There's a reason parenting is called the toughest job in the world, and everyone has bad days. But if you feel as if you are at the end of your rope or you might take your frustrations out on your children, take a break. Put your child(ren) in a safe place (such as the crib) and take a moment to calm down. Have a friend or relative stay with them while you visit friends, sleep, take a hot bath, or go to the gym-whatever will help you recharge. Even a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood can do wonders for your state of mind. Reach out to others if you are at your wit's end-never take your frustrations out on your child.

Amazing, Kiersten and I agreed, how it’s all so simple!

NOT!


I also got this concise and compassionate note, which I loved, from the wise and stylish Cousin Flora, a nodding, knowing….

“Ah yes, I remember those days….hang in there.”


From my devoted once-and-future shrink Ruth:

“I’ve been following your blog. Listen, Super Mom, or Super Jew, or whatever it is you’re trying to do over there; how about coming in for a few sessions?”


And finally, my favorite, from Fabulous Friend Kelly Kay Griffith, regarding Chapter 5, the car-screaming-episode:

“Jesus Christ. Are you alive?”


I have the nicest people! My kingdom for a podium at which to stand and wring the hem of my ball gown as I look with dewey eyes upon you all, proclaiming, “You like me! You really like me!”

Meanwhile, I am making arrangements for the fates of my detractors, the worst of whom is a relative who called Papa the Red to insist that Minky appears to be “overwhelmed” and “having problems,” and who FAILED to call Minky directly to offer support, or perhaps a few hours of free baby sitting (you see, the trouble with advice articles is REALITY,) that Minky might go and have a hair cut or a cup of coffee and a newspaper or, heaven forefend, an evening out with poor old B. No… that was not offered. Only belittlement and superiority were offered. So helpful!

NOT!

But more to the point; any parent who asserts that they have never had something comparable to the afternoon of screaming I had with M, or a bout of clop-cup-en-vant such as was caused by the nightly game of Musical Sleep Deprivation that went on here, is either:

High
Drunk again
Not taking care of their own kids
Or
Lying.

But who cares about them, especially when I have the champ that is Papa in my corner, whose response to the relative was:

“You don’t understand. She’s not writing to complain. She’s writing to tell the truth. She’s writing to tell other mothers how it really is, and to not be alone.”

I could stand up clapping and do one of those cool, macho, long whistles right now, or in lieu of that, I could hoot like TV talk show audiences do; “Whoooo-hooo!” I say to Papa, “Tell it, Mister! Tes-ti-FY!”

I LOVE that man.

And as for the arrangements; I’ll probably go with this week’s special at my x-husband’s drive-thru contract service, ‘Bludgeon King.’ They get it done with your choice of a marble ashtray, Cricket bat, or my all time favorite… I love writing this almost as much as saying it… the Ball-Peen Hammer.

THAT’S A JOKE. THAT BUSINESS DOSEN'T REALLY EXIST.

Christ!

Life With M, Chapter 5

We went to the beach with Papa, and probably shouldn’t have; it’s awfully hot outside. M and Little H’s cheeks turned a near-pulsating red within minutes of setting up our spot there. But I had promised M, and Papa, and couldn’t bear to reneg. They’d have forgotten about it eventually, but I couldn’t have tolerated the guilt, or the boredom of another long, long, sweltering afternoon.

They three sleep most of the way back and wake up in foul moods on Queens Boulevard. We drop off Papa and begin to search purgatory for a parking space; we circle, and circle, and I start to get jittery for caffeine and a snack; it had been too hot to eat lunch.

M and Little H are hungry, too, and need a drink. “Bwown dwink,” M announces, meaning chocolate milk. “Bwown dwink. Bwown dwink.” Little H just whimpers for a nurse.

“We will definitely get a drink at home, guy, we just have to park our car. Try to be patient,” I say, deliberately leaving no room to negotiate.

“Bwown dwink,” M insists. “Bwown dwink! Bwown DWINK!” He wants it right now, but he’s playing, too, his tone teasing.

“We’ll have it upstairs,” I say, seemingly unable to control my compulsion to answer every utterance he makes. It’s not a discussion, he has to wait, so why can’t I shut up?

“Bwown DWINK! Bwown DWINK! Bwown DWINK!” he yells, grinning in panicky sadism; he doesn’t believe me. Why? “Bwown DWINK! BWOWN DWINK! BWOWN DWINK!”

I hit the brake and turn to the 5:30 position, steadying myself by grabbing M’s car seat, and not M’s arm. “Please stop saying it, sweetheart, mommy’s trying to park the car and then we will go up and have the drink. Can you please wait quietly?”

“Yesh.”

“Thank you,” I say, and hit the gas a little, continue to search for a space, my fingers tapping the wheel because I know it’s coming-

“BWOWN DWINK! AAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!” M screams in mania, mouth open and smiling with cruel glee. “AAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” he screams again, this time so loud that Little H bursts into terrified tears, and I yell out in shock from the actual pain of noise slicing through my skull.

I pull over with a screetch and turn abruptly again to grab the car seat, all in slow motion; my rage at his screaming shoots down through my arm and the impulse to finally, just this once, slap him, is powerful; I don’t do it. I know I won’t. But I feel like I could.

Nevertheless I let out a bellow of anger so loud and alien I’m not sure it’s come from me at first; I sound like a man. I stop us all cold. M is momentarily stunned, and looks at my reflection in his backward-facing car seat mirror.

“STOP THAT SCREAMING! KNOCK IT OFF OR YOU GO RIGHT IN THE CRIB ALL ALONE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. I MEAN IT!”

I don’t mean it, but the standoff is quiet, and I seem to have gained leverage. None of us move. After a moment, M’s frightened face relaxes, he smiles, laughs at me, and screams again. I put the car in park and bang my head on the steering wheel 17 times. Little H cries and cries.

“I quit,” I mutter, and pretend that it’s so, just for this moment. I am totally at sea. I’ve lost my way. I have no idea what to do with us now. But a parking space opens up, and I take it. I don’t say another word. M screams a few more times, looking for my hilariously angry expression in his reverse-view mirror, but I don’t engage him. I start to unpack the car, yanking out the double stroller and smacking it against the curb, it springs open with a flourish, hanging toys and cup holders flopping brightly out like flowers from a top hat. Diaper bag over the right handle, my mini knapsack purse over the left, M’s sandals in the bottom basket, smash the towels in there, too; the plastic bag of wet bathing suits and the beach toys can cook in the damn car for the rest of the hot afternoon for all I care right now. Fuck it.

I go around and extract weeping Little H from her deep car seat, and immediately she begins to calm down. I love her so. She is so sweet, so good natured, so passive; I wish I could protect her from this, whatever it is that goes on between me and M. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into her peachy ear, and I bounce her gently around for a moment before laying her back in the rear of the double stroller.

M watches all this closely and on his face I see a new confusion. “Boobee,” he says sweetly, trying a different tack. “Mommy,” he goes on, smiling at me. “Mommy mommy, boobee. A bink a bink, see mommy, go upstas, pway, mommy pway? Wead books!”

As I pull him from his car seat he gives me kisses on my chin and neck. I kiss him back one time, and sit him in the stroller’s driver seat, and I crouch, and look him in the eye. “You know that the rules are no hitting, no pushing, and no screaming. When we go upstairs, you’ll have a time-out in the crib, because you screamed. Got it?”

He nods, and looks away.

In the elevator, Little H falls asleep again. And inside the apartment, I leave them both in the stroller for a moment so I can pee in peace. I splash cold water on my face, take a deep breath. I undo M’s stroller straps and let him out for a moment. As I turn to take my beach shoes off, he runs around the open back of the stroller and slaps Little H on the head. She screams, and cries, and I shout, “That’s it! That’s it. TIME OUT!” He was getting it anyway, how do I make it mean more? I yank his binky out of his mouth and throw it on the floor.

I stick him in the crib and go back to the stroller, scoop out Little H, rock her on the sofa till she’s calm, meanwhile M cries like hell.

I nurse Little H, while M cries. I change her diaper. I set her up sitting in her Boppy with a baby video to watch and a heap of little toys. I wash M’s binky, and go back to him.

“Bink!” he demands on sight of it, still crying.

“You can have your binky when you say sorry to me for hitting and screaming.”

“No! Bink!” he says, and cries again. We go around and around with this for a while, I leave once or twice, he cries more, I come back, and eventually we get it together.

“Sowwy, mommy.”

“Okay,” I say, and we make it up with hugs and kisses and a bit of boob. We talk it over. “I’m sorry that I yelled at you,” I tell him. “We both have to work on keeping our voices down. Let’s both try to be quiet like butterflies, for the rest of the day, okay? And gentle.”

“Buddafwy,” he says, leaning exhausted against my chest.

“I love you,” I tell him, and he nods. “Pway,” he says, and climbs off my lap, runs out to the living room, and I’m after him like a shot, because I just feel in my bones what’s about to happen, but I don’t make it in time, and as I careen around the corner into the room, he smacks Little H on top of her head, she lets out a shriek of insult and pain, I lunge for him, and we start the whole goddamn thing all over again.

Life With M, Chapter 4

I sit on the playground bench next to my pal, a Russian grandpa who takes care of his granddaughter all day. The granddaughter, a little older and a little taller than M, is ‘sharing’ his trucks; meaning the two have been peaceably dividing the trucks between them for about twenty minutes and are now eyeballing each other in preparation for a good cathartic fistfight. M grabs, the Russian girl swings and lands one truck on M’s head, he shoves back, snatches away the truck of contention and comes flying at me in dismay, and I open my knees and fold him back into my body, my arms all around him, his yowls muffled in my sand-bag breasts. I hold him.

He should defend himself, but this time he really started it. “Why did you grab that truck from her?” I ask him. “You have enough. You were sharing so nicely.”

“NO-O!” says M, up into my face, as if I’m missing the point, and I probably am.

“Okay,” I say, “but we brought a lot of trucks. That’s your friend. Can you play some more?”

“No,” M says, burying his face in my thigh now, and anyway the grandpa is prying trucks from the little girl’s hands and getting ready to leave. My heart falls, and I imagine the grandpa to be disappointed in me, for some reason. I like this friend for M, she gives him a run for his money. She cries angrily and stamps her foot. M watches. I can’t tell if he cares.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the grandpa as he steers her away.

“No worry,” he says, “see you.”

Little H, busily chewing a velour duck till now, starts to cry.

Life With M, Chapter 3

We’re in the playground, as usual, M, Little H, and I. It’s beastly hot outside, so we leave our beast, the dog, behind at home. It’s also late, after 6, and B will be home soon enough to take the poor old thing out (not me, the dog!) for a drag around the block.

Just now is when the playground becomes approachable again. The sun is setting in earnest, and the treeless place titrates down a few degrees. People come out of the brickwork, spilling from lobbies and rolling strollers up service ramps of bulging apartment buildings all around. Kids swarm in, mothers drag behind with thier limp hair and perspiring smiles, fathers with loosened ties and sweaty suit jackets flap down the block to meet them. The playground comes back to life.

“Ice-ee twuck! Ice-ee twuck!” shouts M, pointing. Doodl-y doodle-y, doo-doo-doo, the monkey chased the weasel…

“You’re late,” I say to the ice cream guy, kidding around. “Gimme a flying saucer, I’ll pay ya tomorrow.”

“Why you so nice to me, lady, hah?” he says curtly, kidding too and handing over the treat.

“Pity,” I say. “Really, tho, I ran out without-“ but he dismisses me, saying, "Go, go, mommy..." My credit is good and he’s got a line of hot little hands waving crumply bills at him.

I pirouette back to M who is strapped into the stroller, waiting for the flying saucer, which I pass over his head, making space ship noises, "Zhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnrrrrrmm! BEEP! BEEEP! BEEP!"

“Ice-ee, ice-ee!” he says, breathing fast and reaching out for it, kicking his legs with excitement like he used to do on sight of B coming through the door at the end of the day. The treat is barely out of the wrapper as M reaches up, high now, his arms are getting long, and grabs it from my hands, starts nibbling away at the black, damp cookie part, licking the white ice cream investigatively, touching it to the tip of his nose and then looking at me, eyebrows raised, as if to say, 'Ice-cream-nose; does it work on me?'

I slurp the middle of his face and he shoves me away; I’ve gone to far, gooney mommy that I am. I sit on a bench, relishing the sitting, watch kids fly around with their ice creams. Little H sleeps in the back of the stroller, her round, pink face hot and peaceful. M eats.

And then is distracted. A bigger kid has run by and caught his eye, a girl, 5 or 6, pretty and birdlike and boney and definitively un-American looking, with golden colored skin and light hair, as if she has been to the beach, or camping. She has hazel eyes and large, gray-white, crooked teeth, an open-mouthed but cautious smile. She wears purple cotton pants, dirty white sandals, a ‘Dora’ t-shirt, the ubiquitous uniform of little girls, but there’s a sophistication to her face, her posture, something harder, something of memory. She has only one hand.

“Wha-SAT?!?” M shouts, pointing at the stumped, waxy wrist. “Wha-SAT! Wha-SAT!” He demands to know, eyes bugging out in alarm.

‘That happens?’ I imagine him thinking, ‘You knew about this, mommy? Where the hell is that kid’s HAND?’

Landmines, I imagine, but say nothing, of course. She has already seen us, the girl, and she pushes her little sister on a swing, steady as a metronome, watching us, the little sister a baby version of herself, in tact.

Can my eyes speak for me at all? I try carefully and hard to smile the right way at the girl, to convey to her that she is lovely and unusual and strong. But in his outrage, M drowns my silent admiration out.

“Wha-SAT?!? Wha-SAT?!?” His pointing finger, like his father’s are, long, articulated, practically scorns.

“Let’s go see,” I say. There has to be a way in.

We roll on into the swing area and M climbs over the stroller bar as I mop off him with wipes the last of his flying saucer. Shoeless and shirtless, all frayed, uncut blonde hair and tan limbs, he could almost be the middle brother to these girls; but he’s more primal than they, and fatter. M grips the bottom of the swing next to the baby sister and hangs from it. I pull and push him up into it properly while he gives the bigger girl a side-eye; up close, he’s not so blatant, not so brave. But he’s still looking, and he’s looking at me, too, and she’s looking at me, and I don’t have the answer or even the right question.

“I like your 'Dora' shirt,” I say to the girl, synchronizing our pushes. I pat my shirt front, then point to hers.

“No,” she says kindly. No English, she means. Then we all four look straight ahead instead of at each other, and keep swinging.

There is no way in.

FOR INFORMATION ON LANDMINE INJURIES TO CHILDREN AND HOW YOU CAN HELP, CLICK ON MY UNICEF LINK

Sleeping On It

From now on I’m calling The Prince, ‘B’. It was just getting annoying.

Anyway…

Minky was sick; no, I’m not talking about sick in terms of Minky’s various depravities that we’re all painfully aware of ; I’m just talking about a bad summer cold. And am I inDIGnant! This doesn't happen to ME! It takes more than mere germs to fell the persevering Minky...but I was in a weakened state. Well over a year ago M launched a battle campain against his poor mother that I call the Nurse of Attrition. Night after night he chips away at my sleep and my sanity. His strategy is thus; in bed by 8:30, then wakes up anywhere from 1 to 4 times after that, and starts his day at 6:15 a.m. In between, it’s booby, booby, booby.

I used to think this was him and me bonding. These days… not so much.

Little H, on the other hand, is not one to bite the boob that feeds. She's reliably down before 7, sleeps till 6, and gets up once in between, if she can be bothered; “She could give a shit,” my mother would have said.

Meanwhile, I myself can't go to bed before midnight. I just can’t. I can fall asleep drooling on the carpet in front of ‘Sex And The City’ reruns no problem, but once I shlep my fat ass into the actual bed, I’m wide awake. What am I doing till that time of night? Oh... this, probably. Emailing. Watching various seasons of 'The West Wing' and 'ER' with B. Suffice to say, what I'm doing is having 2 or so hours out of 24 that don't involve the babies; some selfish bitch, me, hah?

Nightly, then, about half an hour after I finally drift off, I hear the first stirrings of restless M, and then I see the shadow of his messy, rectangular head, and my heart starts to race, ‘cause here it comes-

“Mom-EEEEEEEEEE!” he whines, loud, and it goes through my skull like screeching tires, my shoulders bunching up under my ears in irritation. B goes near him and gets a disgusted, “NO! MOMMEEE!” and a slap for his trouble.

“Mommy, booby…” M weeps, changing tactics, so I get up, and hoist him out of the crib, into the nursing chair, he has a boob, falls back to sleep, and I put him back into the crib, and go back to bed. Fair enough.

Then GLINK, GLINK go my eyelids as I lay there awake. 20 minutes pass. No sign of sleep. Now it’s 1-ish. GLINK, GLINK. In my mind I start itemizing the refrigerator contents… one wilty romaine, half a box of baby spinach leaves, a salvageable red cabbage, 2 bags of baby carrots…and my eyes start to close….

Rustle, rustle, “Eeenh,” mutters M, “race car…” and he fidgets, then kicks…

“WHERE’S MY FUCKING BINKY?”

I could have sworn that’s what he said.

I leap over B, irate; WHY is M awake? He CAN’T be hungry! “Sh! SH! SH!” I hiss at M as I fish in the crib for the damn binky, find it, and tuck it into his face. But that won't do.

"Nooo...BOO-bee," he whimpers, so I haul him out of the crib again. “Come on,” I stage whisper, half-hoping B will wake up and suffer with me. I plunk myself and M down into the nursing chair, M across my lap, his long, Princely limbs folding all over themselves, bink pulsing in his mouth, and I flop out a boob, but he’s not interested; he’s asleep, and I've been bink-winked.

I dump him back in the crib. Fine, I think, fuck it. I unfurl my big quilt onto the floor, grab the pukey-smelling nursing pillow, and lay down in the middle of the room. Why keep climbing back and forth over poor B? It’s almost 2 now. She’s due, Little H, she’s been down for 7 hours, and if she wants to keep those ham-hocks happening she’s gonna need a Booby-shake. I lay there, GLINK, GLINK, look up at the digital clock, 2:20;

“WAAAAHHHHHHHNNNNN!”

Scramble up off the floor, scoop her out of the minicrib, jostle her into position on the nursing pillow and stuff her mouth full of nipple; she nurses for exactly 5 minutes, and is back to sleep, the efficient little darling.

Okay, I mutter, okay. Was that out loud? Am I alive? Okay. It’s a quarter to 3. That’s not so bad, right? I’ll just lay down here on the floor again rather than push and drag what seems at this time of night to be all 8 feet of B over to one side of the bed or the other, because by now, he’s set up camp twisted into the blankets and smack in the middle, arms and legs everywhere, not to mention nose and hair. Let him have the bed, the poor old dude, he works hard. That big jerk. I could kill him. I’m here on the floor pretending my face makes cartoon noises and he’s been blissfully asleep for 4 precious hours. The bastard. He’s obviously trying to gaslight me. He wants me to go insane so he can have me committed and run off with our beautiful children and someone willowy with her own paycheck. Well, if I was on the old episodes of ER, I’d be Carol’s best friend from childhood, and I’d be a paramedic, and I’d have my own subplot, and I’d date Carter for a while, but he’d turn out to be too young and optimistic for me, and I’d turn to Dr. Green one evening in Doc McGoo’s over a beer, we’d have a laugh about something, and then a wonderful affair that turns out too good to be true, and I’d be killed horribly when one stormy night on the way to rescue a child pinned under an airplane, my rig flips over into a ditch! And THEN my husband, I mean my real-life husband, B, would finally realize how wonderful I am and all my books and stories would be published posthumously and that would show EVERYBODY!

When suddenly, I’m snoring! Hooray, I’m snoring! I hear myself snore! This must mean I’m asleep! Except that I’m not asleep, I’m awake! Which is how I heard myself snore!

“BOOOOBEEEEE!” M howls into the night.

“boobee,” he reiterates, pitifully… none of us really understand his suffering.

I stand up. I stumble. I grab him. We’re back in the chair. He nurses. He falls asleep. I toss him in the crib. It’s 4:16 or some fucking time. I give up. I go out to the living room. I eat a bowl of cereal and watch the super-early news. I lay on the couch. I hate our couch. I start to doze off. I hear the bedroom door open, then B’s feet, heavy, because he’s carrying M.

“Minky?” he whispers carefully.

“He’s not,” I mutter.

“He is,” he says. “If you just give me one more hour, I’ll….”

“NOPE,” I say, “No hour. I’m sorry. No,” and I storm off to bed, because it’s after 5 a.m., and I’m just shit out of magnanimousness.

And that is a typical night at Minky’s, and Mother of Christ, am I tired.

I am not often given to wondering if I’m doing it wrong. Usually, if I wonder anything, it’s why somebody else is doing it wrong. But in the case of month after month beyond month of sleepless nights, I’m beginning to consider the possibility that I fucked up but good.

M has always gone to bed, as in lain down for the night, beautifully, because I nurse him to sleep. It works, so why mess with it? Many moms told me not to do this. “They have to learn to put themselves to sleep,” is what a lot of people, A LOT, say. Not until Little H arrived did I know what this means. But when M was really tiny, I thought it was a bunch of BS, and in many ways, still do.

First of all, why did he have to learn to fall asleep by himself? Was he getting his own apartment? And how exactly, if nobody showed him, or helped him, fall asleep, was he going to learn it at all? Because babies usually didn’t get the memo, you know? And then there was all this sadistic crap under discussion about leaving the baby in bed by itself, the really obscenely inhuman “CIO”, or Cry It Out, big-finger-quotes-gesture “method”, or to my understanding, abuse system, of purportedly teaching the baby to go to sleep alone.

Yea; I’m going to leave the person I love most in the whole world, who weighs like 15 helpless pounds, and who happens, in the bargain, to think I’m God, all alone, in the dark, to cry himself sick, thereby learning, if he doesn’t choke or vomit or die in the process, that I don’t give a shit about him. Yup, that’s a good idea. That’s just what I’m going to do.

It kind of reminds me of my mother’s old friend Elaine, who 36 years ago said, “I heard that if you just throw the baby into the pool, they’ll automatically swim.”

“Tell you what,” said my mother. “You throw yours in, and if it works, I’ll throw in mine.”

Elaine was not, in fact, willing to try. But in the case of sleep, a great many moms seemed to be insisting that not only did they try, but that it worked. So I had to wonder; did it work? Or were they lying?

Listen, I really get it, I do, that there are babies out there who will not go to sleep; I heard once of a colicky baby who began her nightly screaming shortly after midnight and continued till sunrise, for 2 months straight, and I think those parents deserve a highway named after them or something; I'd have gone Kool-aide by the end of the first week. I'm not talking about truly unusually uncomfortable babies. I'm talking about regular babies, and our expectations of them and for ourselves.

In a birthing preparation class while pregnant with M at Realbirth in Manhattan, educator Hallie Grieder frequently said, "Having a baby means things aren't going 'back to normal.' Remember, folks, this is 'the new normal.'"

Nobody gets that for a long time, it seems. It's hard enough for new moms to adjust to so little sleep, and with the added pressure of everyone from our families to perfect strangers asking the same question over and over, it's practically impossible, without feeling like a total failure...an exhausted failure.

My mommy-pal Danielle, mother of Anya, who’s almost 2, and president and publisher of CelebrityBabyBlog.com, once wrote to a brand new mom on an e-chat, “If anybody asks if your baby sleeps through the night, just lie and say yes; because that question is code for, ‘Are you a good parent?’ and if your baby doesn’t sleep through, then you’re not.”

And everyone else on the chat with slightly older babies, who had, in other words, some experience, concurred. The e-chat belonged to a breastfeeding organization (guess which one) which insisted that nursing to sleep was the only humane way to get a baby down for the night, and that nursing it throughout the night, as frequently as the baby requested, was the reasonable extension. While I myself had no need to insist about what other moms should do (I make myself laugh that I even have the balls to write that; okay, how about, I try really hard not to be too jugemental,) I felt then and maintain that there are a variety of moral, emotional, and safety related problems with leaving a crying baby alone. But when I was brand new at this, it was a relief that at least somebody, in fact a whole bunch of people, thought I was, well, doing it right.

I wanted validation, and maybe even an excuse to go on, because the central issue for me, beyond the right way or not, and beyond even that nursing to sleep worked, was that I liked it. I still do. To sit in a comfy chair, in a safe, peaceful, twilight room, holding one’s baby against one’s naked skin, to smell their bath-time freshness, to watch their blissful face, to listen to their grateful suckle, and to just be, to just be together, to just sit there and love and nourish one’s baby…is there any other reason to have the baby to begin with? Isn’t this moment the dream come to life?

What’s not to like?

Anyway it wasn’t as though I had anywhere else to be. In fact, I didn’t go anywhere at night till M was about 17 months old and I flew off to Rochester one weekend to visit The Elegant and Productive Nancy, who is one of my 3 self-adopted sisters and who is also probably the most prolific artist I know personally. I was about 6 months pregnant and my milk supply had dropped considerably, so whatever nursing M was doing was almost purely recreational or ritual, and B and I hoped that with an excess of exercise and a big dinner and a long bath, he would be able to get M down for the night without me for just one weekend, and he was.

Had I consulted my crystal ball (I must clean out the closets and find that thing,) I might have night-weaned the kid right then and there. But I didn’t, so I didn’t. Besideswich, I also thought at that point that given his age, the low supply, and his changing role from baby to Big Brother, M would soon see fit to night-wean, or totally wean, himself. I just wasn’t worried about it.

All right, I was worried about it.

I wasn’t worried that M would not ween, I was worried that he would.

In my heart, in the soul of my body, in the center of my life-force, I nurse my babies. I cannot bear the thought that one day they will stop. I love to nurse them. And they love to nurse.

Nevertheless, I’m exhausted. It’s one thing to nurse a baby through the night for a year, or even two. And it’s not such a big deal to go on doing it, as I did, through pregnancy, as long as you’re eating right (translation - a lot) and have basically no other responsibilities. But it’s another thing to nurse a big, fully verbal, probably somewhat spoiled, little boy, 3 or 4 times over the course of just 6 hours or so, in the depths of night, when he’s fully capable, as Miranda on “Sex And The City” once said, “of chewing steak,” even if his infant sister is taking is going very easy on the night nursing herself and even if, yup, you have pretty much no other responsibilities. It’s a thing, in fact, that can maybe make a person sick; not because it's unhealthy, but just because it makes a person...

SO

TIRED.

And so the gland thingies under my jaw that my mom would always touch to see if I was faking had been about the size and texture of walnuts for over a week. I had a headache every day. My nose was runny, my eyes itched, my joints hurt, and I basically felt like crap, but I ignored it; after all, I was really tired, right? But by Wednesday, I was running out of steam. And Saturday after noon, I crashed.

I had taken M and Little H and The Dog to the playground so B could have a nap (let’s not compare notes on who slept how many hours this week just now, shall we? Someone’s liable to get stabbed.) We ended up staying about 3 hours. When we got back I was hot and sweaty…but B was making waffles! From a good mix this time! So I sat down to tuck in, and half way through, the room started spinning. I was more than tired. I was about to pass out. I even put down my fork.

Meanwhile, teething Little H just couldn’t get into her nap, and the third time I went in to settle her, I actually stumbled through the doorway, and found her crying her big blue buggies out, so I gathered her up like a bunch of laundry and set her at B’s feet.

“Good luck,” I said, and went to bed.

Four hours later, they were in the exact same position in which I had left them, sitting on the couch watching old episodes of The Muppet Show, only they claimed to have been, in between times, on a walk, to a park, and eating ice cream; in fact Little H was sitting primly on The Prince’s lap having some yogurt just then, the no-dairy-till-one-year-old rule long since discarded in my cheese-inhaling-household and incidentally aren’t formulas (not that ONE DROP of the stuff has ever passed my children’s lips) based on the genetic structure of cow’s milk so who’s kiddin’ who? Anyway B took care of all of us for the rest of the weekend and by Sunday night I was somewhat on the mend.

Lucky for Minky it all happened when B was home; if I’d collapsed like that early in the work week we’d have been screwed. I am quite sure it was all due to nothing other than the sad fact that I haven’t had more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep, except for Saturday afternoon’s nap, and my weekend visiting Nan, in over two years. I can’t go on like this.

All right I’ll go on.

I’m gonna try the Dr. Jay Gordon night-weening plan..soon. I don't know when. But Dr. G’s is the only one of all the sleep adjustment plans out there that’s remotely relevant for us, because he designed it for use with babies who sleep in a “family bed,” or it’s evil cousin, the crib-3-feet-away. You see, the real problem here is not just habitual, my friends, it’s structural; we all sleep in the same room. That’s how we ended up in this position.

We live in a one-bedroom apartment because that’s how we survive on one income; and when everybody sleeps in the same room, you give a loud baby anything that will shut him up at 2, and 3, and 4 a.m.. Here at Chez Mink, it’s the boob. I didn’t start out wanting to get up 5 times a night, I started out wanting to take good care of my baby. I read, I listened to other moms, and B and I talked a lot. Nursing, actually, is the foundation, the guiding principal, of all my parenting, and for all the mistakes I may make, for all the late-night expletive hurling that I do about the night nursing, the truth is that I’m not sure either M or I are ready to stop.

Did I, in fact, fuck up? Did I have another choice? The world will never know.

Meanwhile, Little H has learned how to fall asleep by herself, and I helped. In the beginning I just let her pass out wherever she was, which was mostly on the couch or in our bed, and at the end of the night, one of us would crawl in with her. We'd trade pairs through the night according to boobular need. Eventually, I started to transfer her into the minicrib. And when she was 3 months old, I remembered that I started putting M down formally to sleep at 6 p.m. when I noticed that she started getting really cranky at that same time. I would give her a bath, and a final boob, but M would be bouncing around in the living room, and I couldn’t just sit there in the nursing chair as long as I had in the old days of one baby. So as soon as she stopped nursing, I would put her in the minicrib, still awake but drowsy, and go out to the living room with M, and listen for her. If she cried, I ran in and gave her a binky, and then went back to M. If she cried again, I ran back in again and re-binked her. If she cried again, I gave her another few slurps, and put her back in the crib, awake, because I had to. And in a few more minutes she’d be asleep, and that is how we do it now.

I didn’t leave her alone to cry. I will never do that. And frankly, I don’t think you should, either.

What I’m saying is, I didn’t use a system. I didn’t count minutes, I didn’t follow a series of steps that anyone else delineated; I met the babys' needs. That’s my job as the mom. And babies are pretty nice, they will usually tell you what they want, and it’s almost always one or two of just a few different things. Except, of course, when it's not, and I don't have experience with that, and I'm very fortunate.

I’m not saying I’ve got this beat; there are always curve balls. She could change! Growing children will do that! The very thing that's wrong with books and systems and experts is that there is not, in fact, one kind of baby, one way of doing things, one answer.

(Except don’t give the baby Pepsi and Doritos for dinner. And don’t leave it alone to cry. Yes, this is Minky insisting on how other mothers should do things.)

I just think that change is incremental, and suddenly the babies grow up. We have to listen closely, look closely, and take it moment to moment. Sure, I may try Dr. Gordon, but then again I may not (I guess I'll sleep on it.) Oh who am I kidding. This is about M and me bonding. This moment with M, and Little H, too, is all there is. New York could blow up tomorrow, in fact it often does that. If my family survives the unknown of the next ten minutes, ten years, holding M at my breast in the night will be a memory, one that I’ll be lucky, very lucky, to have.