Family

8 Things I Know About Christmas

1. It’s not a major holiday until the smoke detector goes off. 2. My favorite holidays feel like hibernating. But with better food. And sometimes, presents. 3. The proper attire for Christmas dinner is jammies. 4. Under Armor is the greatest invention ever for the perpetually cold. And by “perpetually cold” I mean “me.” 5. Who isn’t at the celebration is as important as who is. Loss may be part of life, but most of the year we carry any absence deeper within us – many of us carry it well enough that it’s barely discernible to the naked eye. (Otherwise, each day would be excrutiating, wouldn’t it?) But holidays bring loss into relief, with gifts unbought, empty stockings, empty arms, and holes that peek into a parallel place. 6. There is nothing more wonderful than children when they are young. Except those same children, growing up. 7. Habits emerge […]

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‘If It’s Empty, Fill It’… and 10 Other Rules for Living Companionably with Teenagers, Kids and the Generally Clueless

I created this slide show a while ago, after a particularly interesting challenging irritatingly irritating few days when I felt like I was the only one in my household who recognized stuff that needed doing. And the only one who subsequently did it. Can you relate? I’m sorry.

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Missing

My mother died 25 years ago yesterday, when she was 62. I realized this fact sometime last night, and it astounded me. First I was astounded because I remembered how, at the time, I thought that she was appropriately old enough when she died after a lengthy illness. (Whatever that means—another thing I now realize is how insolent it sounds to suggest anyone is ever “old enough.”) I thought her life had been long and full, when in fact it ended unfairly soon. At the time (and I cringe to write this now), I thought I was the only one who was young and without parents. And there’s that insolence again. Which leads me to the second astounding thing: My mother has missed most of my life, much more of it than she saw. When I think about my mother I still think like a child. In other words, I

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Just A Dog

I’ve been in a tough place this week; like my skin is thin as tissue paper, and it bleeds raw at the slightest chafe. Yesterday the imbecile at the college financial aid office started arguing with me when I called to inquire about a billing issue. She thought I was complaining, the bitch, when clearly I was merely clarifying. By the time I ended the call, I was brimming with rage and frustration. I thought for a moment that maybe I was the one primed for a fight. But no, she really was unreasonable (the bitch – did I say that?). I was on a cell phone, and I pined momentarily for the ability to slam the handset back into its cradle. That would have felt more satisfying. And I thought: Technology. It sucks, too. Maybe it’s more like walking around with my insides on my outside, and my flesh

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Same-Sex Discount

We are standing in line at Westminster Abbey, waiting to pay the admission fee. Up ahead, the cashier is housed behind glass in the entry vestibule, which is a small area with a cold, stone floor. It’s chilly and damp outside and much the same inside; when we finally slip past the door and inside, it’s like walking into a refrigerator made of rocks. It’s £16 for an adult admission for me and my friend Beccy, and another £6 for each of the three children with us. In total, that’s £32 + £18, or £50. But then I notice an alternative: The family rate for 2 adults and one child is £32, plus £6 for each additional child. Or, in our case, £44, in total. That saves us £6 in admission—roughly $10 US. At the time of our trip (late winter of 2011) each US dollar is worth about half

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What We Carry

He’s freighted with two pairs of shoes, extra clothes that didn’t fit in the duffel, three sketchbooks, a camera, drawing pencils, a couple of books, a rent deposit for next fall, and film in a protective lead case. My arms are empty, but I’m carrying an uncontainable mix of baby boy joy; the sweet smells of childhood; and cruddy, exhausting, hilarious teenage agonies freshly capped with some annoyance from this morning, when he insisted he was ready to go when most of what’s now stuffed in those two bags was still roaming the house, itinerant. This he shouted over his shoulder at me as he scurried to retrieve it. Headed down to security, he’s forgotten all that. He doesn’t carry any of that with him, because his head is full of where he’s going, not what’s already behind him. He has 50 pounds strapped to his body, but he steps

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The College Drop-off: Can We Cut the Crying Parents Some Slack?

A story on MSNBC yesterday asked, Has the college sendoff always been so tough? Alongside the piece is a video from the Today show, subtitled, “As NBC’s Kevin Klein reports, when it comes time to say goodbye on campus, it’s the parents who’ve got issues.” I’ve noticed an abundance of these stories lately — including one a few weeks back in the NY Times, Students, Welcome to College; Parents, Go Home — perhaps because my own freshman son is freshly deposited in Baltimore, at the Maryland Institute College of Art. I understand the entertainment value of mocking these hyper-controlling “Velcro parents” who have a hard time letting go. Anecdotes abound of parents out of control — like the mother who camped out in her daughter’s dorm room to help the “transition” to college. Even less kooky stories are popping up: At St. Olaf College in Minnesota, incoming freshmen view a

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A (Sort of) Sentimental Post That I Tried to Make Less So

Yesterday I sat in the stands at my son’s graduation, smack at what would be the face-off line of the covered ice hockey rink, counting the rows of chairs on the floor below and trying to work out which mortarboard was his in a royal blue sea of 440 graduates. All of us parents standing shoulder-to-shoulder were doing the same thing, of course: Each of us seeking out our own kid, each of our hearts swollen within our chests to the point of bursting. (We parents are impossibly foolish, aren’t we? It’s easy to mock this brand of sappy sentimentality -– I want to mock myself right now –- but still you are powerless to resist the thing that makes you so happy, so joyful, so full of love that you are full to the brim, and overflowing, and all your bones are loose and floating in the syrupy liquid

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Parent Bingo

My 17-year-old will be in college next year, and right now he and I are deep in the process of applications and school visits and talks that spring up suddenly at dinner or in the car and begin with, “Maybe I should think about…?” or “Have you considered…?” It’s a process that feels very much how I once heard a writer describe the process of writing: Like feeling your way, a foot or two at a time, along a very long and very dark tunnel; you can’t fathom where it ends up. Sometimes it’s my son who starts the conversation, and sometimes I do. But either way, it’s clear that this is less a new topic than it is a thread of a conversation we’ve been having for many months, and probably years. It’s the same conversation every parent has first with a spouse and then later with the child

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