Things We Don’t Talk About: Being the Anti-Hero

I have an uneasy relationship in my head with singer/songwriter/cultural icon Taylor Swift. On the one hand, I appreciate her catchy tunes and sharply intelligent lyrics. After watching the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana with my children, I was deeply impressed with Swift’s creative process, and grateful for the thoughtful messages she conveyed about the dark side of fame and her struggles with body image.

On the other hand, I can’t help but feel a little resentful that so much of Swift’s oeuvre has become the soundtrack of my life – a soundtrack that I didn’t choose, but that’s been thrust upon me by my children. Taylor Swift’s voice accompanies us everywhere: driving in the car, doing dishes, doing homework. I’m also less-than-thrilled that she seduced our whole family – including our pre-teen children – with her early, wholesome, country-to-pop crossover albums, and then released a trio of albums over the past three years in which 1/3 of the songs are marked “E” for “explicit lyrics.” It’s made for plenty of exciting, dive-for-the-mute-button family car rides.

Still, on Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights, there’s a song that’s become a sort of anthem for me. When I first listened to “Anti-Hero,” I recognized the chorus for how it beat in time with my own subconscious: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”

This year, I started seeing a counselor. While my Puritan ancestors would never sign up for therapy — let alone admit to it — I teach my children that therapy is smart, not shameful. Indeed, over half of our family has seen counselors at any given time over the past couple of years. I have an amazing spouse, dear friends, and a church community, but there’s nothing quite like meeting regularly with someone whose job is to reflect your thought and behavior patterns back to you in all their dysfunctional glory.

I started therapy because I was starting to be haunted by this dysfunctional thought: Everybody would be better off if I weren’t around. All I do is ruin things and create more stress for people.

It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.

This thought pattern came to light when my counselor asked, “What are you most afraid of?”

How would you answer that question?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

A Mother’s Day Reflection on “The Giving Tree”

“You know that book, The Giving Tree?” my daughter asked the other day. We were on our way home from her two-day class camping trip – a 9^th grade tradition at her school.

“Yes….” I replied, warily. I do know The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein’s bestselling 1964 picture book about a boy and the tree who loves him. We’d been given the book early on in our life as a young family, but I’d gradually become so disturbed at the type of relationship The Giving Tree modeled for my children that I’d expelled it from our bookshelves.

“Lil read it to us on the trip,” my daughter continued, “and I was crying so hard. It’s so sad; it’s like a metaphor for everything.”

“What touched you most about the book?” I asked.

“Well, at the end, the boy and the tree both have nothing left to give, but they’re just together….”

“That’s true,” I acknowledged. “What do you think that’s a metaphor for?”

“A lot of things. Parenthood.”

“Parenthood?!?” I yelped. “Do you plan to strip me of everything and then sit on my dead body?”

“Well you wrote once about how you should die slowly for the people you love!” she countered.

Not for the first time, I had mixed feelings about intelligent children who read my columns.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Parenting Teens in Middle Age: Here Be Dragons

My fourth child turns ten in June, which means that I have been writing this column for over a decade; this is my 299^th column.

Back when I first pitched this column to John McCright, my patient and kind editor, I envisioned writing from the perspective of a mother with young children who had recently moved to Vermont and was experiencing all the quirky joys of this unique state for the first time. That’s what I was back in 2012. That’s not what I am anymore.

My husband and I are no longer particularly young; we’re middle-aged, closer to 50 than to 40. Our five children still live at home, and since our son was born in 2019 we do have one child who qualifies as young — but we also have two teenagers and a tween. And while there are definitely still new Vermont experiences to be had, we tend to stick to the same familiar, comfortable, large-family-friendly activities.

I’ve noticed lately that it’s more challenging to decide what to write about. The seasons come and go. The garden is planted, grows, and dies. Chicks and ducklings arrive, and sometimes they die. We go to the lake, to the apple orchard, to the Christmas tree farm, to the ski slopes. We drive the kids to school and activities; we cheer at their games and performances. Every so often the cycle is disrupted by a tornado, a pandemic, a seriously ill child. Then the machine creaks back into motion. I’ve written about all these things.

It’s not that there aren’t soaring joys and crushing tragedies. Life hasn’t become dull and predictable. Rather, at this stage of life, I’m discovering that there are more and more things that we don’t talk about. That we can’t talk about. That we won’t talk about.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

On Dyeing Eggs…Again

Having now parented five children over the course of 15 years (and counting), I can attest that parenting is seldom repetitive. Each child is different, every stage and season brings new challenges (or, as parenting blogs often frame them, “exciting new opportunities for growth!”) Even predictable developmental milestones seem novel, because I honestly can’t remember when my older children hit those same milestones. (This is embarrassingly clear when our fifth child has pediatric appointments and the doctors ask, “When did his big sisters start walking/talking/eating solids?” I hem and haw over vague time ranges, all the while thinking, Do I LOOK like I have time to keep track of all that?!?)

But there is one area in which repetition is apparently required: holiday celebrations.

When I was a younger, more energetic mother, I had an idealistic vision of creating our own particular family traditions around holidays. We would do special things year after year that would define our family culture! These things would channel our creativity! They would bring us closer as a family! They would be the very things our children would remember nostalgically when they were grown!

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

The Bird That Lived

It began on what I hope was the final snow day of this winter.

Snow days in our house begin with joy, as the teenagers realize that they don’t need to leave for school and can sleep late, and the younger children realize that their older siblings will stick around all day. But by the afternoon, with the seven of us ratting around the house, we’re usually a little stir crazy.

So on this particular afternoon, even though the snow was still flying horizontally, everyone went outside. The younger children grabbed their sleds, and my husband and I grabbed the dog for a walk – or an arctic stagger — down the driveway.

We’d just reached the mailbox and turned back towards the house when, through the swirling snow, we saw our eldest daughter coming out to meet us.

“Sooo, I was heading out to take a walk,” she began, “and when I opened the door Hermes ran in with something in his mouth. I couldn’t stop him.”

Hermes is our cat. Five years ago, our daughters discovered him and his four brothers in a dollhouse in their piano teacher’s attic, where they’d been stashed by their mother – a stray cat the piano teacher had taken in. Our girls, who felt a proprietary interest in these kittens, lobbied hard to adopt one. That’s why, despite two confirmed cat allergies in our household, we brought Hermes home. Those cat allergies are why Hermes became an indoor-outdoor cat.

But Hermes had never brought any animals into our house before. My husband and I walked back through the snowstorm as briskly as we could. The two main questions running through my mind were:

What KIND of animal was it? And was it still alive?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

The Therapeutic Benefits of…Ironing?

“Vacuuming can be therapeutic,” the middle-aged woman told my 22-year-old self.

We were standing in the bedroom that I would occupy for the next year, located in a wing of her Greenwich, Connecticut compound. I was a recent college graduate, working as a classroom teaching assistant in a tony private girls’ school by day and taking graduate classes at night. Until recently I’d been living with two other young teachers in a dingy apartment in Stamford, but when this woman, whose three daughters attended the school at which I taught, invited me to move in with them, it was like manna from heaven. I’d pay no rent, eat meals cooked by the household chefs, live minutes away from work, and have access to the compound’s gym, pool, and tennis courts. In exchange, I would serve as an additional “responsible adult,” with some occasional duties driving the children to school and activities.

I’d also be responsible for my own cleaning.

“You don’t mind vacuuming your own room, do you?” the woman of the house asked apologetically, before adding, “I find that vacuuming can be therapeutic.”

It struck me as an absurd statement from this woman with perfectly highlighted and coiffed blonde hair, her toned body clad in spandex as if headed to a workout (with a personal trainer, of course.) In addition to my humble presence, this household was kept going by a staff of cooks, cleaners, gardeners, trainers, and tutors. Right next to my bedroom was the office of madam’s personal secretary — although she did not work outside the home, she somehow still required a secretary. Her husband was employed as a high-level investment banker at a Manhattan firm; he disappeared in the predawn hours each morning into a chauffeured Town Car.

Of course I didn’t mind cleaning my own space – I’d spent the past six months cleaning up after two housemates (and their boyfriends.) But when was the last time this woman had actually vacuumed? For her to suggest that she occasionally practiced vacuum therapy smacked of Marie Antionette skipping around on her tidy personal farm.

That was over twenty years ago, and I can honestly say that in the decades that have passed I have never once found vacuuming – or any household cleaning, for that matter – to be at all therapeutic. I complete my household chores with resignation because I want my home to be comfortable, welcoming, and attractive. (Also, if I’m honest, because I’m driven by the voices of my Puritan ancestors whispering that other people will judge me as slothful if my home is messy.)

But there is one chore that I have refused to do on principle, except when absolutely necessary, and that is ironing.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Letting Go Of Balloons

On Valentine’s Day, my parents hosted all five of my children and me to a lovely after-school dessert party at their house. We left with two shiny red heart-shaped helium balloons.

The balloons were of greatest interest to our three-year-old son, who delighted in bringing them carefully home in the minivan, releasing them into the living room, and making his sisters retrieve them for him all evening.

The following day was warm and blustery – for a Vermont February, at least. Two of my daughters went outdoors after lunch, and my son, in a classic little brother move, wanted to follow them. The only problem: He wanted to take one of the balloons with him.

This is not my first rodeo. I am well aware of the expected result when a child takes a helium balloon outside: One way or another, that balloon is likely to float away, leaving potentially harmful environmental impacts and a hysterical child in its wake.

Try explaining that to a determined three-year-old.

“You shouldn’t take the balloon outside, because it might fly away and get lost,” I reasoned.

“No! I’ll hold on tight!” he countered.

“Okay, how about I tie it to your wrist? Then you don’t have to worry about it flying away and your hands will be free.” See what a professional parent I am?

“NO! I will HOLD ON TIGHT!” he persisted. Just like that, I was launched into a perennial parenting dilemma: Do I double down, insisting on the rightness of my way (and likely spending the next 30 minutes dealing with a child in full-on tantrum mode), or do I let him have his way, lose the balloon, and learn from his own mistakes?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

A Story of Marriage in Three Beds

“You spend 1/3 of your life in bed,” my husband, Erick, tells me.

Our beds are where we sleep, of course, and we need sleep: Sleep is when our bodies repair and recharge. Bed also tends to be where we lie awake, tossing and turning during difficult times through the watches of the night. We take to our beds when we’re sick. And the most intimate and vulnerable moments of a marriage happen in bed; moments that can lead to the creation of new life.

Our beds, then, are pretty important.

When Erick and I got married, we had almost no furniture. I spent the three years before our marriage in a studio apartment on East 91^st Street in Manhattan. It was the size of a large walk-in closet, and my furniture consisted of a futon, a bookcase, a steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, and a large and uncomfortable wicker chair (which, for some reason, we still have.)

Erick spent those same three years sharing a rental house in Cos Cob, Connecticut with three colleagues from the hedge fund where he worked. His belongings consisted of several large plastic bins and a mattress.

So we were in trouble when, just prior to our wedding, we purchased an apartment in Manhattan complete with a large living/dining space and two bedrooms. (Granted, the second “bedroom” could fit nothing larger than a crib, but still, it was a huge step up.)

Thankfully, gifts are a part of getting married – and thankfully, cash is the gift of choice if you’re marrying into a Chinese-American family. Clutching our wad of wedding cash, Erick and I quickly bought what we needed to furnish our first apartment. “Quickly” is the operative word: Neither one of us particularly enjoyed furniture shopping, I just wanted to get our home decorated as soon as possible, and Erick didn’t have strong opinions. Except when it came to beds.

“I’ve heard that it’s important for married couples to get a king-sized bed,” Erick said, with authority. “That way, they each have their own space.”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

How to be an Undertaker

Our family said goodbye to two remarkable women this past December: My grandmother and my aunt died within two weeks of each other.

Although the proximity of these events, along with their timing – just before Christmas – felt particularly unfair, it was, perhaps, statistically unsurprising. It turns out that the death rate spikes during the winter months, likely due to the prevalence of seasonal illness and the increased stress that colder weather places on the immune system.

My grandmother, at 104 years old, enjoyed a sharp mind and relatively good health right up until the end, and had been able to remain in her home thanks to the diligent care of her nearby children. My aunt, at 78 years old, had fought for three years with health issues related to a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, buoyed by the love and support of family, friends, and neighbors. Both women figure prominently in some of my happiest childhood memories. They were warm, loving, incredibly funny, and they showed up: both were still sending my children birthday cards right up until they died. They were also tough: Both were single mothers for a time. In raising a combined seven children to adulthood, my grandmother and my aunt each endured more than their fair share of tragedy.

How do you write about two entire lives? Perhaps the best I can do is to tell you that when her daughter-in-law told her that her beloved Boston Celtics had played well in a recent game, my grandmother – literally on her deathbed and barely conscious – mustered enough strength to gasp out, “Wow….Wow.” And my aunt insisted that the upbeat Beatles song, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” be played as the processional at her funeral.

The circumstances surrounding their deaths were different. My grandmother was my father’s mother; my aunt was my mother’s sister. I was able to say goodbye to my grandmother, but not to my aunt. I was unable to attend my grandmother’s funeral in person, but I took my four oldest children to my aunt’s services.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Life With a Saint

I’ve begun to suspect that I may have married a saint.

To be clear, it didn’t take me 20 years of marriage to figure out that my husband, Erick, is a uniquely kind, generous, and principled human being; he’s been that way as long as I’ve known him, and his fundamental goodness is one of the things that first drew me to him.

But lately, Erick has added a series of ascetic practices to his life that make me wonder if he’s displaying the early warning signs of becoming a desert hermit. He’s not yet wearing sackcloth and ashes, or practicing self-flagellation, but it may be only a matter of time.

Erick is no stranger to discipline, self-denial, or extreme frugality. When I met him he was managing a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, but his only earthly possessions were confined to a few plastic bins. Then, as now, he wore his clothing until it literally fell from his body in tatters. (Much to his children’s chagrin, he takes great pride in several Sesame Street t-shirts and a black trench coat that date back to his high school days.) I have long been baffled by his habit of suddenly cutting coffee entirely out of his life for weeks at a time so as to avoid becoming dependent. He eschews all social media and imposes strict controls on his internet use. Yet he will tell you humbly that all of this discipline is necessary…because he lacks willpower. (How’s that for circular reasoning?)

This is the husband I’ve known and loved for two decades, but over the past six months he’s taken his monkish habits to the next level.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.