For New Old Moms to Learn Old New Tricks
Life is easily divided up into who you are before kids and after. This was written long before my kid changed my life. Thank God she has no Bad Aunts. My sister went into labor early so I thought it best to get the hell out of Dodge, aka, suburban Connecticut. I was packed and ready to train it to JFK, but the nanny who…
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Who knew that Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was written as a comic memoir? A quick visit to Amy Chua’s website reveals she wrote Tiger Mother as a self deprecating confessional of just how utterly she failed at raising her kids in the same strict, no-nonsense Chinese way her immigrant parents raised her. But when the book was released, something was lost in translation….
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The first time I realized my father was old was when I made him a mixtape of my new favorite band, Sachal Jazz Ensemble. He skeptically eyed the thoughtfully curated tracks of this fascinating Pakistani collective playing Dave Brubek. He quietly tossed the CD on a table and told me no music created after 1965 is worth listening to. He actually believes he’s heard everything…
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When the conversation in the car (why does all the serious shit-shat (before Grace it was chit-chat) always happen when I’m driving the car?) starts with- GRACE: No one in my school likes black. Everyone doesn’t like black. ME: (freaking out, eying my daughter in the rear view mirror, which makes me narrowly avoid t-boning a There-Will-Be-Blood-mustachioed-hipster-in-an-ombre ’93 Allante) What do you mean? What does…
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This Old Mom rarely (if ever) feels like she’s figured out parenting (precisely when did parent become a verb?) — but for one night the taste of momhood was seriously super duper sweet. It was 9:00pm, I’d been trying to get her into bed for 2 hours and Grace’s attempts to stretch out her bedtime rivalled a Jerry Lewis telethon or hostage situation. I was…
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#1 The Tickly Place (I realize these are dialogues more than monologues. Poetic license is a thing and I’m taking it.) Interior. The Benjamin Moore Dove Grey painted gender neutral bedroom of a 3.5 year old girl who hates dresses and loves cars. Tacky cars. Monster trucks and Mater and Lightning McQueen cars that I hide behind organically harvested wood toys made by lesbian woodworkers…
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Been fuming over the Oscar Nomination bullshit and the resulting social media sandstorm. While waiting in Hollywood Urgent Care due to my head being about to explode, I made the mistake of reading Charlotte Rampling’s comments on the nomination backlash. Really, Charlotte? The uproar and boycott is ‘racist to white people’? (Cue a freaked out publicist maniacally drafting Rampling’s “I was misinterpreted, misinformed, mis-medicated and/or…
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I sometimes make up autobiography titles for people. It beats actual conversation. Long ago I decided my mom’s autobiography title was, “You’ll Never Believe Who I Sat Next To On The Plane.” Mom didn’t merely befriend people, she absorbed them into her hemisphere. Most conquests were made on planes, trains, in foreign countries, grocery store lines, nail salons, theater audiences or in the ER. Mom’s…
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Now I’m no Camille Paglia, but in what America are stick-on fingernails an educational toy? For girls? Wouldn’t they inherently be more educational for boys? Is the America where nail stickers are an educational toy for girls the same America where a 12 year old boy is murdered for pointing a toy gun is not considered a crime? Am I stretching this analogy too far?…
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OK. I officially just told Grace to shut up. That’s right. While putting Grace to bed, This Old Mom told her 3.11 year old (I just can’t say ’35 months old’ without feeling like I’m talking about the remaining balance owed on my Prius) daughter to shut up. Granted, she’s a talker, when I let her get a word in edgewise, that is. And let…
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