I Don't Know How She Does It

I didn’t see the movie, but I recently finished Allison Pearson’s book, I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT. It’s written in that British chick-lit-speak that became popular during the BRIDGET JONE’S DIARY years, except that I didn’t find it as appealing as BRIDGET JONES, just snappier and more repetitious. The story of a young mother battling the impossible tasks of her dual careers as an investment broker/wife and mother begins with her smashing the crusts of store-bought mince pies, then sprinkling them with sugar to look homemade at two o’clock in the morning in order to compete with the stay-at-home moms bringing treats to a children’s play. The scene works, but as the novel progresses we find our heroine claiming to love her high-powered job enough to settle for a manipulative, exorbitantly expensive nanny who loses receipts, a long-suffering husband and a boss who disregards the most basic of human needs. How could a woman who managed to claw her way into “a man’s world,” her words, meekly settle for the kind of life that makes the meat-packing factories of Upton Sinclair’s, THE JUNGLE, appear relaxing? I found the book exaggerated and hard to swallow. The author, although a working mom, admittedly, never worked in the field she describes.

I suppose what really bothers me is that my daughter, also the product of a working mother, raved about the book. In fact, it’s her copy that I borrowed. The possibility that my own child related to the attention-deprived children of Kate Reddy, appalled me. I was a teacher for pity’s sake, home after school, on weekends, holidays and summers. I made breakfast, lunch and dinner, volunteered frequently, helped with homework and chauffeured, to and from, practices and games. What more could I have done, I wondered, except not work at all, an option, I believed, wasn’t possible for me? And yet, was it? Could we have lived on less, moved to a less affluent area, shopped more carefully, eschewed the lessons and summer camps, the sports’ fees, vacations and dinners out? Would my children have benefited from a more relaxed mother who didn’t panic when the thermometer pulled out of a protesting mouth read 100 degrees at 8:30 in the morning? I’ll never know. Those days are long gone.

“Mothers have enough to do at home,” my daughter states emphatically.  “Read the book. How can anyone possibly manage a life like that and raise anything but neurotic children?” I stare at her, mutely wondering how she can ignore the obvious. Finally, I muster the courage to broach the question. “Was it really so terrible?” She hesitates, formulating an answer somewhere between her usual brutal honesty and the natural desire of a loving daughter to protect her mother’s feelings. “Summers were good,” she replies, “and holidays were great. You always made holidays great.”

Then my son called from Chicago. “Honestly, how would you rate your childhood experience?” I asked him. He laughed. “Are you serious? I had a great childhood, Mom. No one had it better than us.” My relief was embarrassing.

Two children. Six years apart. One female, one male. The same parents. Go figure.

Teaching Then, and Now

Yesterday, in the grocery store, I reconnected with a former student. Ten years had passed since he was in my class. Ten years is huge in the life of a child. This particular young adult was bright-eyed, conversant, personable and, to my amazement, able to recall quite a few incidents from his 6^th grade year, the year I was his teacher. He told me that was the year he learned to love reading. He asked if students today still read “A Wrinkle in Time,” (not so much anymore) and then, he topped off his walk down memory lane by telling me he still had the novella he wrote in my class. “It was my first book,” he added.

He isn’t the first student who told me he learned to love reading and writing in 6^th grade. I’ve had a few journalists, English teachers and even a novelist come back and report to me over the years. But for some reason, yesterday, the words warmed my heart more than usual. Maybe it’s because this year is particularly frustrating, 39 students in a room designed for 25, old programs thrown out for new ones with structures that appear nebulous and haphazard, the reinventing of a wheel that falls apart upon not too close inspection.

I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen whole language replace phonics, Anita Archer rise and Madeleine Hunter sink, and cursive handwriting bite the dust. I’ve seen, in an effort to stimulate creativity, grammar and spelling thrown out in exchange for a kind of accepted stream-of-consciousness writing that would make Faulkner and Joyce look like staunch fundamentalists. I’ve seen desks arranged in rows, desks arranged in groupings of four, six and eight only to return to rows again, this time with chairs pushed so tightly together, children sit like cooped chickens counting down to their few precious moments of recess. We wonder why they fidget, why their attention falls short, why they don’t listen. Take a walk through classrooms with desks that can’t be raised another inch, defaced books used years beyond their intended retirement date and air conditioners that, on the hottest of days, blow heat into classrooms without windows.

We fundraise frequently and this year every classroom has a smart board.  I’ve heard that students will soon have Ipads. We test as often as we read, more often now that the teaching of novels, according to the latest round of statistics, doesn’t reap the results that staying within the Language Art’s textbook does. I miss the days when discussion was a part of instruction, when teaching wasn’t quite so regimented, when a student could experiment with an essay without his neighbor bumping his elbow, when homework was reasonable.

I wonder, ten years from now, will anyone stop me in the grocery store and tell me she remembered 6^th grade because she loved reading the state authorized textbook? Will she remember anything of elementary school other than those few precious moments of recess?

Curling Up By the Fire

No one would ever call me a perfectionist. I’m more of a big-picture, good-enough kind of person, but my environment, both writing and living, has always been important to me. My personal space has changed over the course of my career, adapting with the changes in my family and my finances. At first, when my children were small, my “space” was a small computer table and steno chair in the family room. My children played games, watched television and invited friends to play while I created and typed away, oblivious to noise, music and, occasionally, minor wounds.

As my family grew and square footage increased through moves and room additions, I graduated to my own office complete with desk and chair, a comfortable couch and, the most wonderful of inventions, a laptop computer which allowed me to move between desk and couch as the mood struck. Over the years, I’ve done away with the desk and straight-backed chair, choosing to, at first, keep files in a cabinet and, eventually, in bookmarked pages on my computer. I’ve come full circle because, now that I’m an empty-nester, my office has returned to the family room. I sit in a very deep, comfortable chair, usually cross-legged but, sometimes, with my legs stretched out in front of me on an equally comfortable ottoman.

I love color and my space reflects it. My chair and ottoman are a deep garnet-red. A chest hand painted in gold, black and more red serves as a coffee table for my tea habit and the shelves of my bookcases are painted a dark, lacquered green. Even more than writing, reading is my passion. I surround myself with books, hundreds and hundreds of books, written by authors who inspire me, as well as photos of my family to remind me of my focus, and prints of Ireland and Scotland, the settings for my novels.

CATRIONA, my current release, is a story set in Scotland. CATRIONA began at the ruins of Stirling Castle. After exploring the grounds, I climbed the stairs to the watchtower where Margaret Tudor, daughter to Henry VII of England and James IV of Scotland, waited for her husband to return from the Battle of Flodden Moor. This was a particularly difficult time for her because her husband and father fought on opposing sides. I read in the small brochure handed out, when I turned over my nominal fee for visiting the castle, that Margaret had carved a poem into the stone wall. The poem is no longer legible and no one really knows what her thoughts were, but standing there with a death grip on the parapet because of the terrifying wind, I imagined what they might be.

Jamie Stewart was a handsome, charismatic king who spoke 8 languages, fathered 38 illegitimate children, founded universities and demanded that the nobility learn to read. History tells us the marriage was not a love match. I decided, for purposes of my novel, that it would be. Why not, I thought, create a woman, with ties to both England and Scotland, a woman with a shameful secret who needed Jamie’s protection for her own purposes? Why not pair her with her equal in intelligence, Jamie’s favorite, a powerful border lord, who’d helped him win the crown? Why not set the two of them amidst the intrigue of the Tudor and Stewart royal courts?

Then it was time to create the contemporary plot of my novel: enter Kate Sutherland, her descendent, an American born 400 years later, an educated woman searching for answers to the odd circumstances of her birth and her frightening ability to see what others could not. This part I dreamed up at home, curled up by the fire in my bright red chair, along with the others that followed. There are still, I hope, quite a few more to come.

In Retrospect … Post Wedding Day Thoughts

We celebrated my daughter’s wedding on Friday. It was a beautiful, intimate and elegant wedding. Vows were exchanged without a hitch; the flowers, candles, linens and band, particularly the band, were everything we’d hoped for. Food and spirits were delicious and plentiful, toasts were tasteful and, most important, the bride and groom looked relaxed and happy. All flowed smoothly... I think. If something didn’t, it wasn’t enough to notice, but then, unlike my daughter, details frequently escape me. I’m a good enough kind of person.

I did notice that guests looked comfortable; the dance floor was filled while the band played, plates were emptied and people stayed late, all signs of a successful event. Was it all necessary, I wondered, all the worry and organization, all the hours spent on the smallest of decisions, all the meetings and follow up with professionals who provide the services and products for an industry that has shown no decline despite the economic woes of the past few years? The question intrigued me enough to seriously consider the qualities necessary for a wedding to be deemed successful, what must be included and what can be left out when budgets are stretched, as they usually are.

The unnecessaries, according to Jeanette

Favors are unnecessary. Most people leave them behind.

If wine is served during the meal and champagne for the toast, an open bar for the duration of the reception is over the top.

Expensive flowers are unnecessary. Whatever is seasonal works just as well.

Linens need not break the bank. After all, when the glassware, flowers, candles, china and silver are on the tables, the linens barely show, especially during an evening wedding.

The choice of cake should not take up an inordinate amount of time. Guests are dancing and socializing during the serving of the cake and, frequently, never eat it, which breaks my heart because I am particularly fond of cake.

Stylish and painful shoes are unnecessary, particularly for the bridal party.

Pass on new underwear and expensive jewelry.

If there is a choice between teeth whitening and waxing, always choose the whitening.

If the wedding is outside or at the beach, women should reconsider having their hair professionally styled.  Better yet, wear a hat.

I’m not convinced having makeup done professionally is necessary either, but I’ve become a fan of false eyelashes in place of mascara. All the crying in the world won’t leave raccoon circles under your eyes.

More than four toasts are unnecessary.

The necessaries according to Jeanette

A reasonable schedule and a wedding party who can tell time.

Feed the bride and groom during the day, especially if an evening wedding is planned

Vows should be meaningful but not too humorous or too sentimental.

Candles. There is nothing more beautiful than the glow of candlelight after the sun goes down.

The band. An accomplished and professional live band is a gift for the guests as well as for the bride and groom. Give up whatever you must for this treat.

Flowers, no matter what kind, speak of celebration.

Good champagne, the kind with the smallest of bubbles...enough said.

Guests seated with those they know, and are comfortable with, are happy guests. Smaller table groups encourage conversation.

The bride and groom should know every guest’s name, greet him personally and thank him for coming.

Dancing lessons. Dancing is fun when you’re confident on the dance floor.

One final thought: There is little point in taking people to task for arriving late, failing to schedule a haircut or not bringing a jacket. It’s too late. As long as you’ve invited people you love and the bride and groom show up, all will be well.

I Made a Mistake

I made a mistake. It was one verb in one sentence and I wrote it in 1996. It wasn’t a grammatical mistake, it was one of degree. The word, my reader explained, should have been “help,” not “correct,” and it referred to a surgical procedure anticipated by the mother of a deaf child. Deafness cannot be “corrected” although there are implants that will “help” the child hear as long as the implant is in place. The character wasn’t a major part of the story. In fact, he never comes into it again, but someone noticed and was offended. I apologized, but still some damage was done, although my reader was very polite and assured me she enjoyed my book and will order others.

I’ve learned a few things about deafness since 1996 and I’m aware of the controversy over cochlea implants. The situation made me think of other “mistakes” professionals make and whether it’s possible to be a professional anything without making an error over the course of a working lifetime. Doctors certainly make mistakes, hence malpractice insurance. Teachers make mistakes. According to some, the answer is to evaluate teachers on the test scores of their students. Others imposed “No Child Left Behind” which stipulates that all children should test at the proficient level by 2014. Are all children ever proficient? Are all adults? Legislators make mistakes. Californians decided to impose term limits and withhold salaries. Don't we already have term limits called elections? Are we any better off with people who never stick around long enough to gain experience? On the other hand, should the leader of a country lead for 40 years?

Dentists make mistakes, too. Mine certainly did two weeks ago. I needed a long overdue bridge which required crowning two neighboring teeth. A week later I was still in the kind of pain that, without the miracle of Advil, took my breath away. Back I went to the same dentist for an attempted root canal. 90 minutes into the procedure I was referred to a specialist who explained that the root canal might be on the wrong tooth. Sure enough, after another week of pain, many dollars later and 600 mg of Advil every 6 hours, I will endure root canal number two. 

Pain is a funny thing, funny as in strange. It changes a person’s perspective. Logic and reason no longer apply. My dentist is a perfectly nice man, concerned and kind. The endodontist is equally nice. She answered my panicked call immediately. But I’m in pain. I no longer care how nice they are. I hurt and I’m past reason. I want to blame someone. I also want my money back.

Jennifer's Wedding

My daughter’s wedding day looms ever closer, the day we’ve been anticipating, imagining and planning for more than a year. I say we because, I’m quite sure that in addition to the bride and groom, the most vested person in this event would be me, mother of the bride. Fortunately, the site for the reception was agreed upon very quickly. Then, we relaxed. After all, September 16th seemed so far away. We are organized women. How hard could planning a wedding be?

In retrospect, I wonder at our smug naiveté. Weddings are an enormous industry and, if resources are limitless, I’m sure it’s possible for the process to flow seamlessly. But, most of us, at some point, must adhere to the ugliest of words: the budget. As soon as the word wedding is mentioned, prices for flowers, music and photography double and the organized, intelligent and beautiful young woman a mother has raised suddenly reverts to someone who is incapable of arranging her own hair and applying her own makeup. Her decision making ability regresses. She cancels her subscription to the Wall Street Journal and orders 12 months of Bride Magazine.

The mother, another organized, equally intelligent, although older woman, will comb Joann’s and Michael’s for rhinestone hearts, card stock and picture frames, all the while debating the merits of silver, gold or black numbers in order to create the perfect place card design.The two, mother and daughter, will debate seating arrangements, bridesmaid's gifts, favors, colors, linens and the height of centerpieces. They will shop until they drop for the perfect dress, the perfect veil, the perfect shoes. They will discuss jewelry, chairs, flowers, cakes, the registry, honeymoon destinations, colors, wines, the bar, the music, the vows, the invitations. They will be consumed with the anticipated occasion.

The mother will ignore the plunging stock market, earthquakes that shake, hurricanes that flood, turmoil in Libya, drug cartels in Mexico, and the depressing state of all world economies, except those of China and India. She will forget that hunger, poverty and drought affect much of the planet and will spend exorbitant amounts of capital because all she wants and hopes for is one perfect day when everything falls into place and her daughter stands before family and friends proclaiming to all that despite natural disasters, tumbling markets, global warming and other unforeseen disasters, this is the person she has chosen to weather them with from this day forward. She also hopes it won't rain.

Children Are Like Books

Once again it’s September and for many of us, September means the beginning of a new school year. A thought occurred to me as I mailed my latest endeavor, HANNIE RISING, to my literary agent in New York: books have a great deal in common with children.

Books and children require a great deal of effort to reach maturity, when the author/parent steps back and says, “That’s it. There’s no more I can do. From now on, you’re on your own. Parents have more difficulty reaching this point than authors and, probably, use different vocabulary, but that’s really the crux of it and, just like with books, the process happens in stages. I’ll skip the conception/plot idea which in both cases, for parents and authors, is quite pleasurable and, typically, not difficult, and begin with stage one.

Stage one begins at the onset of mandatory education: Kindergarten or, in the case of a novel, submission to agents/editors. This is where most of us learn, for the first time that our precious offspring/manuscripts are not perfect. In fact, their imperfections can be easily identified and must be worked on/edited.  This usually involves, in both cases, homework, hands-on involvement including reading, writing, studying.

Stage two for parents is junior high. For authors it is distribution. A certain amount of release is required by both parents and authors, “certain amount” being the qualifying words. At 12 and 13, children can shoulder a degree of responsibility; writing down assignments, asking questions, completing homework. However, they need supervision every bit as much as they did when they were in elementary school, for obvious reasons. Books, also, require some attention. They must be introduced or  “marketed” to distributors who will, based on the interest engendered by sales representatives and authors, place said books in bookstores, airports, convenience stores, markets, etc. Both children and books are in serious trouble without careful monitoring during this stage of exposure.

Stage 3,  for parents, is when a child leaves home for purposes of higher education, marriage or a job. This truly is the point where a parent should think, “This is it. I’m finished. I can do no more. You are my masterpiece. Go out into the world and be competent, compassionate, productive, honest and joyful but don’t forget us, your parents. Call, email and please visit. We’re here to emotionally, not financially, support you as needed. Many parents, me included, aren’t always confident that our finished products are where we hoped they would be at stage 3. Still, we no longer have the remotest shred of control, so we learn to recite the serenity prayer. 

Books, also,  must eventually stand alone, their authors finished with their stories, their prose printed for reviewers and readers, their merits critiqued and blogged about, their ratings published. But, like children, books shouldn’t be released altogether to languish on the shelves or in cyber space. Authors must support their books in the form of promotion. Books must be introduced to booksellers and readers. Although the creating part is finished, authors must tour, virtually or on the road, cultivating fans, acquiring mailing lists, hawking newsletters, gathering Facebook and Twitter fans, in the hope that their books will interest, inspire and bring joy.

I am a 6^th grade teacher. I’ve had many, many successful students and some not so. Most children begin the year chomping at the bit and flying out of the gate. Some need more time to settle in and pick up speed. A few never do. I worry about them. I wonder what I could have done differently.

I am also an author. I’ve had many successful books and some not so. Some have earned awards and bestseller status and, a few, have had too few copies sold, qualifying as flops. I wonder what I could have done differently.