This is Ten

Posted on May 5, 2017 by CNF • Posted in Highlights, Slider Content • Tagged childhood, daughters, excerpt, Lindsey Mead, This is Childhood, This is Childhood Book and Journal, This is Ten • 1 Comment

By Lindsey Mead

This essay is excerpted from Brain, Child’s book, This is Childhood Book & Journal.

I spent my teenage summers at a wonderful, rambling house on the Massachusetts shore with several families. There was always a tangle of children and we got in the habit of going for swims after dinner. One summer, there was phosphorescence. I have never forgotten those unexpected, bright swirls of light, otherworldly, as blinding as they were fleeting

Ten is like that. Ten is phosphorescence. Ten blazes brightly and vanishes so quickly you wonder if your eyes are playing tricks on you.

Ten is a changeling. In my daughter’s mahogany eyes, I see the baby she was and the young woman she is fast becoming. In one moment she’s still a little girl, clutching her teddy bears before bed, and in another she is a near-teenager, dancing and singing along to Nicki Minaj. She oscillates between wanting to bolt for the horizon of young adulthood that she can see and wanting to shrink from it, nestling instead in early childhood with me.

Motherhood has offered me more surprises than I can count, but the biggest one is how lined with loss it is, how striated with sorrow. I am blindsided, over and over again, by the breathless rush of time. For every single thing that will never come again, though, there is a dazzling surprise, a new skill, a new wonder, a new delight. All of parenting is a constant farewell and an endless hallelujah wrapped together, but ten feels like an especially momentous combination of the two.

Ten is evanescent, liminal, unquestionably the end of something, and just as surely the beginning of something else. As my daughter noted, in tears, the night before her tenth birthday, she will “never be single digits again, ever.”

The only thing ten wants more than her ears pierced is a dog. She still laughs uproariously as she flies down a sledding hill, but she also shrugs nonchalantly at the top of a black diamond slope before turning down it and executing perfect turns, her duct-tape-covered helmet a blur of color against the snow.

Ten wears tall Ugg boots I can fit into and impossibly long yoga pants that I mistake for my own when I am folding laundry. Ten organizes her crayons in rainbow order, and I can see the alphabetized spice rack that lies ahead.

Ten swings masterfully across the monkey bars, dribbles a soccer ball all the way up the field and scores, and plays good enough tennis that we can play actual games. Ten loves board games and Club Penguin, and the door of her closet is covered with posters of Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift. When will these girls be replaced in her affection by boys, I wonder? I hope not too soon.

Ten is streaks of brilliance in the dark sea, whose provenance is unknown, which vanish as fast as they appear.

Ten sat on my lap this week, her toes brushing the floor on either side of my legs. I ran my fingers over a temporary tattoo of a shooting star on her arm, and thought: that is what ten is. Ten is a shooting star. An explosion of light and kinesis that will never come again. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Ten leaves heartfelt, tear-jerking notes for me on my pillow, professing her love, devotion, and thanks. Ten sometimes walks icily away from me at school drop-off, refusing to turn around, angry about something.

Ten is sensitive and easily bruised, confused by the startling meanness that can flare in other adolescent girls, desperate to be liked. Ten is alternately fragile and fierce.

Ten is vehement attachment and lurching swipes at separation. When ten grows up, she wants to be a veterinarian, a mother, and a writer. In the “about the author” section of a book she wrote at school, she said that the author took five years to write the book, because she was also raising her children. Ten doesn’t miss a single thing, and what I do matters a hundred times more than what I say.

Ten kneels in front of the “fairy stream” at a nearby park, breath drawn, and I swear that enchantment still brushes past her, like her heroine, Hermione, running by under the invisibility cloak. Ten caught my eye last Christmas when she said something about Santa, conveying in a single look that she knew he wasn’t real but that she didn’t want to ruin it for her younger brother.

Ten is the child who made me a mother, my pioneer, my trailblazer, walking hand-in-hand with me through all the firsts of her childhood and my motherhood. Ten is grace. Ten is my amazing Grace.

Anne Sexton said, “I look for uncomplicated hymns, but love has none.” Ten is a complicated hymn, a falling star, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in time, an otherworldly flash of green gorgeousness in the dark ocean.

Author’s Note: I studied English in college, and wrote my thesis on poetry and motherhood. After graduation, however, I took a sharp turn into the business world and stayed there for many years. It was watching my children, finally—particularly their here-now stubbornness and simultaneous persistent reminder of time’s passage—that prodded me back to the page. Many things about parenting have surprised me, but none more than how unavoidably bittersweet it is. “This is Ten” is one of many pieces I have written about my daughter and son in an attempt to remember the small, mundane, yet blindingly beautiful details of their (and our) everyday lives.

Lindsey Mead is a mother, writer, and financial services professional who lives outside of Boston with her husband, daughter, and son. She graduated from Princeton with an AB in English and received an MBA from Harvard. Her work has been published in a variety of print and online sources. She writes regularly at A Design So Vast.

EXCERPTED FROM This is Childhood

Available Now ($9.99, includes shipping)

Save

This is Ten: Lindsey Mead

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page, Slider Content • Tagged children and childhood, Kris Woll, Lindsey Mead, motherhood, mothering, This is Childhood, This is Ten • 2 Comments

Kris Woll interviews Lindsey Mead, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

I have written about and to my children consistently since they were very small, but it’s true that my daughter turning 10 felt particularly meaningful to me. I wrote a piece to her right before her 10th birthday about things I hoped she knew upon turning 10 which I published and shared. I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of writing, really, that I do about the various ages and stages of my children. The first, much more common, is an attempt to memorialize them, to press the details of them at a particular moment—and of our lives at that same time—into amber, to hold onto the particulars of what I know to be an immensely, painfully fleeting time. “This is Ten” is that kind of writing—a love letter to a moment in time. The second, which is rarer, is “to” them but also, I’ve realized, to myself—so much of parenting is learning lessons as I observe them, remembering things I want to believe, know, do, and exemplify, and sometimes I try to convey that to them but also, without question, to myself. My “10 things” piece was this kind of essay.

What is it about age 10 you liked the most? The least?

Well, Grace is 11 now, and Whit is 9, so I remember 10 extremely fondly. I don’t think there was much that I didn’t like about the age, other than the unavoidable way “double digits” tolls the bell of time’s relentless march. I adored the way Grace was still a child, despite her coltishly long legs and ever-more-mature face. She rejoiced in the tiniest things, held my hand, wondered at the world. The age of 10 is just plain magic.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 10-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I would tell myself to be kinder to myself. I still feel such immense guilt about the postpartum depression that marked my first months as a mother, and I wish I could release that. I would tell myself to pay attention and to breathe. But I’m wary of that advice, because whenever people told me that, and they did, a lot, I experienced it as pressure. Something I wasn’t doing enough of: loving this role, this season, motherhood. I did love it, I see now, and I still do, but in part I think we have to come to that appreciation, come to see how rich and myriad and messy and wonderful is life with small children ourselves. As well-intentioned as “appreciate it!” advice is from others, and I believe it is, I don’t think most mothers respond particularly well to it.

Besides your own piece, which other piece in the collection do you relate to the most? Why?

It’s hard to say. I genuinely love every piece in this collection. When I conceived of the idea, I could never have imagined how moving, honest, and flat out marvelous each essay would be. In some ways I relate the most to the older ages—eight, nine—because that is where my children are. In other ways I particularly love the younger ages—one, two, three—because they remind me of a time that feels so long ago now.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

They are inextricable for me. Ernest Hemingway said, “I never had to choose a subject—rather my subject chose me” and that’s how I feel about motherhood. I have always written, my whole life, but it wasn’t until I had two small children that I truly turned to the page. It’s not as simple that my subject is motherhood, necessarily, but Grace and Whit exposed the drumbeat march of time in a way that I could not ignore. Paradoxically, they also slowed me down for the first time: we’ve all had the experience of walking down the street with a toddler and noticing through their eyes, the streak of an airplane across the sky and the dandelion pushing up between the blocks of cement. It takes forever, but man is it worth it. Motherhood has contained more surprises for me than I can count, but one of the main ones is how bittersweet it is. Every single day I’m brought to my knees by something that’s suddenly gone, over, never to come again. I can literally hear time whistling by my ears. And simultaneously, I’m reminded over and over again of how much richness a single minute or day can hold. Motherhood shows me the glory that my every day life holds, and writing helps me unfold it, understand it, and remember it.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

Just write. Keep writing. No matter the form. I blogged, others write diaries, others write books. There is always a reason not to write, and there are plentiful excuses when children are small. I wrote my thesis in college on motherhood and poetry in the lives of three 20th century poets and read at great length about how hard it is to sit your butt in the chair and write after being up all night with a colicky infant. I’m of two minds on this: be gentle with yourself, and recognize that this is a short-lived season, but also, just write some of it down. It will be worth it to have the memories.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

I hope I have, in some small way, captured the immense majesty that’s contained in the tiniest details of this life, of motherhood. Gail Godwin noted that “the more you respect and focus on the singular and the strange, the more you become aware of the universal and infinite” and that’s something I think of every single day. The only way I know of truly seeing the glittering, dazzling beauty of the universal and infinite is by capturing and honoring these smallest things, singular and perhaps even strange. I really hope this collection helps to remind readers of the value of doing this, and prods them to see how much gorgeousness there is even in the most exhausted, messy moments.

Read an excerpt from Lindsey’s “This is Ten” essay

Subscribe to Brain, Child

This is Nine: Denise Ullem

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged children and childhood, emotions, Kris Woll, motherhood, mothering, This is Childhood, This is Nine • Leave a comment

Kris Woll interviews Denise Ullem, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

My daughter, Abby, was and will always be my muse. My experience as her mother provides endless points for reflection, celebration, frustration and love. As she gets older, however, I shy away from writing pieces about her because I want her life to be her own sacred place; I write more now about my own experiences (and those of my younger son, Henry). This is difficult because I am still a mother of a growing daughter, experiencing just as much as I did when my children were younger. I just don’t feel like it’s mine to share anymore. When I do want to write about an experience with her, I always ask her permission first.

What is it about age 9 you liked the most? The least?

Watching Abby at 9 was like watching an explorer prepare for a long journey—the passage from child to tween. I saw her muscles strengthen, her mind broaden and her senses sharpen. She morphed before my eyes and it was beautiful. However, within each of these stunning milestones brewed a slight melancholy. Nine walloped me with the acute awareness of the end of her childhood journey.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 9-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

Loosen your grip. Breathe in and out.

Besides your own piece, which other piece in the collection do you relate to the most? Why? (OR, if you don’t feel super familiar with the collection, what other age/stage in this collection—which explores 1-10—is one you would like to explore more—or do you often find yourself turning to—in your writing?)

My son Henry will be eight this summer. Just writing those words quickens my heart. EIGHT!? My baby’s continuing maturation serves as a further reminder to slow down to capture the intricacies of this splendid time:

Kisses from the bus window. The endless questions. His hand in mine. The small, quiet miracles of each day. The reassuring fact that I still provide refuge from any storm.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

Motherhood brought me to the page. I started writing to capture moments for my husband, who traveled extensively when my daughter was three and my son a newborn. I now realize that this chronicle of small moments is like a time-capsule to my future self. One day I hope, as I sit my quiet, still home after they’ve both left for college, that my words and essays will take me right back to this heady, physical, intense, wonderful time of motherhood.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

Recently, a Facebook friend asked for friends to relay the best writing advice they’ve received. As I scrolled down to add my own, one commenter simply wrote, “Write.” It struck me with its simplicity and truth. Whenever I start to get in my own way now, I say, through gritted teeth, “Write, Denise, write.”

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

Each day is a gift. Stop and savor it in your way, in a way that will help you celebrate that which is mundane today. Put the words on the paper. I believe those pedestrian moments are those which we’ll all hold up in our memories as time passes, sigh, and see them as glittering, rare gems.

Read Denise’s “This is Nine” essay in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood.

Subscribe to Brain, Child

This is Eight: Amanda Magee

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged Amanda Magee, children and childhood, emotions, Kris Woll, motherhood, This is Childhood, This is Eight • Leave a comment

Kris Woll interviews Amanda Magee, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

My inspiration for this piece was the serendipitous shift in my daughter as the invitation to participate in This is Childhood arrived. Briar is my firstborn, which means that every milestone she hits is a first for me. From the first days of holding her in my arms to these days of waving as her bus drives away, it has been like watching an opal in the sun, constantly changing color and complexity in the gentlest pastels. I am fascinated by her, though this age has been the first that has given me pause as to what I write for public consumption. We talk, “Will you write about this, Mom?” I’ll respond, “Why, do you want me to?” She is my guide, my star, whether I hit publish or not.

What is it about age 8 you liked the most? The least?

Music, definitely music. She loses herself in songs, singing the lyrics under her breath long after the music has stopped without realizing it.

What do you wish you knew before you had an 8-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I have no regrets because there is no way we can anticipate or know what to do, the beauty of this journey is that it unfolds in each moment. Every time I’ve ever tried to plan ahead, to script what will happen, it’s gone another way. I look back on each memory tenderly, because even if I faltered, I was trying, always will be.

Besides your own piece, which other piece in the collection do you relate to the most? Why?

I can’t select a specific post—these wonderful authors are my friends and each write so differently. I think the thing that means the most to me from this experience of chronicling, as a group, these years, is the understanding that in the most disparate scenarios, there is a common thread of love and questioning. It’s a spiritual salve to suddenly know unequivocally, that you are not alone.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

I remember sitting at the computer late at night while I pumped milk, or early in the morning with B in my arms. My writing is the grown up version of bedtime stories, it is where my imagination runs and my heart rests. It restores me and inspires me.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

Trust yourself. Have fun. Listen to yourself.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

Oh, I think all you can ever hope is that your writing sparks something, a sweet memory, an idea, or that whisper of knowledge that we are all just trying to love our kids.

Read Amanda’s “This is Eight” essay in This is Childhood, a book about the first years of childhood and motherhood.

Subscribe to Brain, Child

This is Seven: Tracy Morrison

Posted on April 29, 2014 by CNF • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged children and childhood, Kris Woll, motherhood, parenting, This is Childhood, This is Seven, Tracy Morrison • 1 Comment

Kris Woll interviews Tracy Morrison, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

I was inspired by my daughter’s celebration of pure joy and childhood at this age. She celebrated 7 like many children do. It’s an age that starts some big steps towards big-kid independence, but yet is still so sweet and innocent.

What is it about age 7 you liked the most? The least?

I love how the curiosity continues to bloom and grow in endless directions. Seven wants to know everything and now has the maturity to do something with it—read, write, make stories and play, create! It’s the age of doing and thinking as they come into their own.

Honestly, there’s nothing I don’t love about this age. Seven is old enough to have amazing ideas and conversations, but young enough to still sit on our laps.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 7-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I wish I knew how to prepare better for the endless questions and need for more. The books, the exploring, the need for knowledge. It’s exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. I have a younger child and cannot wait for her to reach 7 now, because I think I will parent better and let her explore more independently.

Besides your own piece, which other piece in the collection do you relate to the most? Why?

Ten is the big one for us right now. I have an 11-year-old, and my ‘7’ is now 9. Ten is a huge deal—more so even than those baby and toddler years. Ten is like opening a window to adulthood—from their understanding, their empathy, their maturity, and their ability to be almost not a child anymore. It’s wondrous watching our children become teens. And starting to tower over us. I have many “We made that?!” moments now.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

I have been blogging and writing about motherhood for more than six years now. My writing not only chronicles ages and stages, but feelings, joys and hard things for all of us. It gives me a place to share, process, and learn and I cannot imagine not having this for all of us. I think the writing gets more challenging as my kids get older because sharing is something that has to be done from a place of mutual respect. While I do write some hard things, I want to write things that my kids will be proud to read someday.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

Write. Observe. Document. Daily. It doesn’t have to be a beautiful essay or even grammatically correct. Or even online. These moments of childhood pass us by too quickly not to remember and write. I have one big regret and that is not taking more time with my grandmother before she died. She never wrote her thoughts and feelings and experiences—and now I have so many questions. We all have experiences that are important enough to leave that legacy in print.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

I hope they find the joy in 7 because it’s such a happy time in the center of childhood. All ages have challenges and wonder—and I hope that all parents can step back and know that in reality—childhood is such a short part of our children’s lives and that we should celebrate it even more.

Read Tracy’s “This is Seven” essay in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood.

Subscribe to Brain, Child

Here We Go, Grace and I

Posted on April 29, 2014 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Featured Blog Posts • Tagged children and childhood, emotions, Lindsey Mead, motherhood, mothering, mothers and daughters, relationships, This is Childhood • 5 Comments

By Lindsey Mead

When Grace was nine she broke her collarbone playing soccer. It happened days after I wrote a piece about how I wanted my children to be physically fearless and push themselves in the world. When I watched my crying daughter, through a glass window, standing in front of the ER’s x-ray machine in her soccer uniform, I was forced to confront my own biases about parenting. Did I still believe that, about being physical, athletic, confident in their bodies, even if this happened. The truth is, I did.

I couldn’t believe how quickly she healed. The first few days were very painful, especially because she fell on day two and caught herself with the bad arm, pushing the bones further out of joint. The low point was the second night after the injury. Grace came into my room around 2 a.m., her face wet with tears.

“Mummy?” she whispered and my eyes popped open.

“Oh, Gracie!” I sat up. “Are you okay?” Matt was away so I was alone in bed.

“Will you help me get back in bed? I can’t do it.” Her face was contorted with a mix of pain and shame. She hates asking for help. I think I know where she gets that particular trait.

I leapt out of bed and gave her more Tylenol with codeine before lifting her carefully into bed. I flashed back to lifting her baby self, swaddled in a yellow blanket covered in white stars, into her crib, putting her down slowly, willing her not to wake and begin wailing. As she lay back in her bed, arm propped up a stack of pillows, she looked at me in the dimness of her nightlight-lit room and I could see that her eyes shone with tears. I sat down next to her gingerly, not wanting to jostle her body, and smoothed her hair back from her forehead. It was damp, and she felt warm. “I love you,” I whispered.

The next morning Grace was dismayed to still be in so much pain. I helped her get dressed, easing a baggy shirt over her shoulder, trying to move it as little as possible. Over breakfast, she asked me to tell her about the bones I had broken. I smiled and told her: an ankle, two bones in one arm, multiple fingers and toes, and several ribs. Her eyebrows shot up as she chewed her toast.

“Well, I’m not going to break any more bones. Ever. It hurts too much.” She shook her head.

“I don’t know, Grace. It’s going to happen sometimes when you do sports. I’m pretty sure there will be more injuries to come in other games.” I hesitated. “I think it’s part of the deal. But I promise,” My eyes swam with tears, but my tone was suddenly firm. “I promise you it’s always worth it to play.”

Within a week of the break she was just taking regular Motrin a couple of times a day. Within two weeks she was annoyed with her sling and didn’t want to wear it anymore. The bones had already begun to knit together. The doctor told us that while she would always have a bump, it would become less and less noticeable as she grew. Then he looked at us both and said, with a shrug: “So? Everybody’s got bumps.”

* * *

Everybody does have bumps. I think of that doctor’s offhand comment all the time. In fact we have matching bumps now, Grace and I. I separated my left shoulder just months before she broke her left collarbone, so we both have visible protrusions by that shoulder.

I wrote my thesis in college on the mother-daughter relationship, a detail that now seems full of portent. It gives me goosebumps to think back to my 21-year-old self, hunched in a small carrel in the library, writing about questions I would intimately inhabit almost 20 years later. Specifically, I wrote about the mother-daughter bond in the lives in three 20th century poets: Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Maxine Kumin. I called them the first generation of true mother-poets and asserted that in all three cases their work was both haunted and enriched by the long shadow of the mother-daughter relationship and specifically by the interplay of identification and separation that marks this bond.

I chose this topic for my thesis with what I remember as an almost utter lack of deliberation; I just knew I wanted to study those poets and to explore these topics. I went directly into the heart of the relationship between a mother and daughter, and spent six months deeply immersed in psychoanalytic theorizing as well as close reading of poetry. I researched and wrote and felt my conclusions fiercely, a fact which amazes me now because I realize how little I knew about the topic. Of course I was a daughter, with a mother I loved dearly, but my real understanding of the fertile and complex layers of relationship between generations of women came only after I had my own daughter. I am struck, not for the first time, by how the perspective provided by the arc of years illuminates choices we made long ago. From those months of work I understand intellectually that the separation of daughter from mother in adolescence is critically important. I know how painful and violent it can be, but also how transformational. Now I am living it.

Grace has begun to wade into the whitewater of emotion that swirls around adolescence. The uptick in her moodiness and frequency with which she’s mad at me are harbingers, I know, of what is to come. As is my pattern, I turn to the page; hoping that writing down my experiences, my observations, and my hopes will somehow help me through this period of dislocation and difficulty. I dread what lies ahead but simultaneously feel great guilt about that very dreading; so far, parenting has surprised me by being better and better every single week, month, and year. Is that golden uphill climb over? Have we, now that the summit is in sight, transitioned to a speedier, less joyful downhill slide? Oh, I hope not. But the truth is, I don’t know. There is so much that lies ahead. I want fiercely to make it through to the other side of this transition with my cord that I know ties my heart to my daughter’s intact, though stretched, of new, different dimensions.

Here we go, Grace and I.

Read more of Lindsey’s work in This is Childhood, a book and journal about ages 1 -10 of childhood.

This is Six: Bethany Meyer

Posted on April 24, 2014 by CNF • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged Bethany Meyer, children and childhood, Kris Woll, motherhood, This is Childhood, This is Six • Leave a comment

Kris Woll interviews Bethany Meyer, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written about this age/stage?

My third son was 6 when I participated in this series. The natural pace through which he navigates life is slower and more thoughtful than that of his brothers. Observing him at age 6 required that I slow my pace—so fast in comparison—to match his. Once I did that, I fell in love with him all over again.

I’ve written about this age before, but it’s most endearing to me after watching how it transformed my third son. Precious is the word that comes to mind to describe it best. Six is precious, and that was lost on me until the third time around.

What is it about age 6 you liked the most? The least?

A 6-year-old begins taking little risks, and he can do that because he feels loved and secure at home and at school. It’s a privilege to witness that shift occur in my kids.

That sense of independence is also a sobering reminder that childhood is finite and our kid’s time with us is short. Each step our child takes away from us also brings a brand new set of parenting worries. The worrying sometimes eclipses our ability to enjoy and celebrate our child’s breakthroughs.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 6-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

When my oldest son was 6 years old, he had not one, not two, but three younger brothers! If I could go back, I’d tell myself to walk away from the dishes, skip the shower, lay the baby down, pull that 6-year-old boy onto my lap and envelope him in my arms. Six-years-old is a mix of big and little. But mostly it’s little.

What other age/stage in this collection (which explores 1-10) is one you would like to explore more—or do you often find yourself turning to—in your writing?

Details are more accessible to me if I write a story almost immediately after it has happened. If I wait—a week, a month, a year—to write it down, it collides with the other thoughts in my head like “have I bought toothpaste yet?” and “where did I put the soccer cleats?” Knowing this, I find myself writing about whatever ages my kids happen to be at the time.

There are few things funnier than 4-year-old boys. They are an endless supply of material for a humor writer. I miss having one in the house, and I do love to read about that age.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

My life is so kid-centric right now that my children are typically my muses. It’s strange being the only female in a house with five males. I look for the funny in that because it helps me keep things that are beyond my control in perspective.

Writing about mothering has been a natural fit for me. Being a Mom is so integral to my story, but it doesn’t singularly define me. Raising children turned me into a Mother. Putting my stories about raising children down on paper has turned me into a writer. I wonder whether my subjects will be different a few decades from now? I’ll just have to keep writing to find out.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

Write, write, write. Ours is a genre that seems saturated, but the voices are as unique as the experiences. Writing, for me, is therapeutic, and when another parent connects with something I’ve written, it validates both of us. Parenting is an enormous responsibility. So many of us are leading parallel lives, but if we don’t talk about what we’re experiencing, the weight of it can feel isolating. Yours could be just the anecdote that someone needs to read to get her through a particularly challenging time.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

For readers whose children have passed these ages and stages, I hope they nod their heads and smile as they read along. Maybe reading an essay will unearth a tender memory nearly forgotten.

For readers who are just beginning their parenting journey, I hope this collection excites them about how robust the first decade of childhood will be!

Read Bethany’s “This is Six” essay in This is Childhood, a book about the first years of childhood and motherhood.

Do You Believe in Magic

Posted on April 22, 2014 by CNF • Posted in Articles Page, General, Highlights • Tagged family, Galit Breen, girls, mother essay, mothering, mothers, siblings, teens, This is Childhood, Tooth Fairy, tweens • 4 Comments

(in a young girl’s heart)

By Galit Breen

I sit by the light of the moon, the lamp and the television screen, as my husband sleeps. My knees are drawn to my chest, I lean against them, pen in hand. My eyes are bleary and my alarm will sound all too soon, but this I want to do.

Swirly letters, print that I hope looks nothing like my own, fill the page. Satisfied, I roll the thin paper between my fingertips, walk down the hall in bare feet, and slip the note and one cool coin beneath my daughter’s pillow.

Chloe, my seven-year-old, just lost her first tooth. She’s waited (somewhat) patiently as her classmates have lost one tooth after another, stories of special boxes and tooth fairies and even braces filling their chapters.

My husband, Jason, and I weren’t surprised about her wait time. Chloe got her first tooth at 18 months. It’s just unheard of! Her pediatrician, who I love, kept saying throughout her well check. It’s just unheard of! I reported to my husband while Chloe gummed raspberries and peas and yogurt between us. He nodded in “appreciation” of my worries, threw a She’s fine my way, and passed her tiny, sliced pieces of his meat.

And she was fine. Of course she was. Seven years later when her smile remained whole while her friends’ tooth count dropped by the day, “we” knew how to tow the She’s fine line. But yesterday, when she came home from school, coveted treasure box in hand, gaping smile proud, she looked instantly older and heartachingly proud and I was more than ready to play my tooth fairy roll.

In the morning, she came downstairs with her trademark steps—confident in the way middle children have to be, blazing their own paths between those of their siblings, and quick because she’s used to taking the kinds of steps necessary to keep up with the longer legs she walks beside.

I knew it was her without looking up, but when my eyes met hers—that match mine in shade and intensity and fierce – I saw what I was looking for. They were absolutely lit. She grasped her tooth fairy magic between thankfully still small fingers and held it my way. An offering.

We sat together on the yellow couch, toes tucked beneath us, and read the note, palmed the coin. The sun was just rising and the sky blazed in watercolor shades of red and purple and even a tinge of green. She leaned against me in the way that I love and I breathed in the scent of her hair. Strawberries, childhood.

Her older sister Kayli came downstairs just a few minutes later and sat by my side. “Look, Kay!” Chloe said, giving her a view of the magic she held. Bookended by my two I wondered how this back and forth between sisters would work.

At nine-years-old, I get the feeling that Kayli knows more than she lets on. She keeps many of her thoughts and feelings and opinions tucked into the crevices of her heart, for her eyes only. But every once in awhile she shares a glimpse of that heart; her own offering.

“Look, Kay!” Chloe says again pushing the note and the coin toward her sister. Kayli gets up and makes her way to Chloe’s other side so now Chloe sits in the middle. This feels appropriate. They lean over the note and read it together. Knees and shoulders touching, locks and voices threading in the way that sisters do.

“You have a great tooth fairy,” Kayli announces with authority. A smile plays on my lips as I look up expecting to see their heads still nestled close. But Kayli’s eyes are on mine. They’re impossibly big and brown and where Chloe’s match mine, Kayli’s mirror Jason’s.

I still write tooth fairy notes to Kayli. Its never occurred to me not to sprinkle that kind of magic into her childhood, but for the first time I wonder if she knows, what she thinks, if she’s actually playing into my glitter instead of the other way around.

The morning needs starting, so we do. Breakfast is punctuated by folders that need packing and library books that need finding and a puggle that needs feeding.

The girls are ready and out the door in what feels like just a few minutes, and are home after a full school day in what seems like just a few minutes after that.

Chloe is in a mood. Her lift has always been as high as her fall. As a baby her laugh was always the deepest and most infectious and her cry always the loudest and most intense. Her feelings fill rooms.

So the rest of us try to maneuver around her, biding time, willing her to rest, to take a break, to give us a break. Jason is bringing home take-out and I cross my mothering fingers that she can make it long enough so we can have this treat as a family. But she just can’t—the ups and downs of the day, the late night and the early morning were just too much for her and somewhere between six and seven o’clock she has struck one too many chords and has been sent to bed.

She showers, wraps herself in lotion and fleece and slippers, the same creature comforts I would have chosen for myself. Seeing she’s on her way to okay, I head downstairs to make her a sandwich. I wonder what my own footsteps sound like to my kids, if they know it’s me without looking up.

As I round the corner into the kitchen, Kayli sits at the counter. Legs crossed, lean body curved, pen in hand. The way that her head is tilted, her almond locks hit the counter. Her eyes are focused, her lips are set. She’s lovely.

“What are you doing?” I ask, running my fingers through her strands that glitter by this evening light.

She looks up, meets my eyes in the jolting way for the second time that day—a smile playing on her lips this time—and pushes her writing toward me.

On a small, thin piece of paper she’s written, “Here’s a sandwich, tomorrow will be a better day. Love, The Peanut Butter and Jelly Fairy” in slanted, curvy, and swirly print that looks an awful lot like my tooth fairy writing. She’s dotted each “i” with a heart. Paused, I look up and take in my girl, note this mark of her tween-ness.

I know this is a turning moment between us and I brace myself for what I think I’m about to feel—sadness, wistfulness, a need to grab onto the fleetingness of it all. But that’s not what happens.

I realize with an inhale that she’s already taken the first steps away from childhood that I’ve been holding my breath for. And with an exhale, I see how beautiful this stage looks on her.

Knowing so much more than she’s let on. Maneuvering between the one being taken care of to the one doing the caring. Using what she knows to show love, to create magic, to be graceful.

“Oh, Kay,” I say, “That was really nice of you.” And not really knowing what else to add, I step aside. Kayli makes her sister a sandwich, calls her downstairs, and, once again, my two share magic while I watch.

So this is the wonder of her tweenness—of being just one step away from the magic of childhood that she still gets and loves and feels the fun and the whimsy and is just looking for her own way to be a part of it.

And as long as I can keep finding these moments to step aside and let her in, neither one of us have lost childhood, instead we’re both tiptoeing into a newfound relationship that is magical in its own right.

Galit Breen is a Minnesota writer. Galit is a contributing writer to Soleil Moon Frye’s Moonfrye, the Huffington Post, SheKnows’s, allParenting, EverydayFamily, and Mamalode Magazine. Galit blogs at These Little Waves and may or may not work for dark chocolate.

See more of Galit Breen’s work in This is Childhood: Book & Journal – Available Now.

Photo credit: Nicole Spangler Photogrpahy www.nicolespanglerphotography.com

This is Five: Allison Slater Tate

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in General • Tagged Allison Slater Tate, children and childhood, emotions, motherhood, parenting, This is Childhood, This is Five • 1 Comment

Kris Woll interviews Allison Slater Tate, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

When Lindsey Mead brought this idea to me, my first reaction was that I wanted to write about the age of 5. My children range in age from 1 to 11, so I have been through every age in the series at least once, and I love 5. It is probably my favorite. Five marked the end of the hazy baby years and the beginning of the ages when I really see my children develop into full-fledged people.

What is it about age 5 you liked the most? The least?

I love the increasing independence, the beginning of school, the development of real friendships. I love that they really begin to discover the world on their own at 5. I don’t love the resulting strong opinions and negotiating, though I realize it’s all part of the deal.
What do you wish you knew before you had a 5-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I wish I had more assurances that for the most part, things do work themselves out and click into place. I worried with my first child because he didn’t read early. He is that kind of child who likes to do things well immediately, and he balked at reading. As a person whose whole life has revolved around reading and writing, I was a little terrified when he wasn’t an early reader. Of course, now I know that doesn’t matter, and he is a voracious reader. First children are scary. They don’t come with instructions.

Besides your own piece, which other piece in the collection do you relate to the most? Why?

I definitely related a lot to Lindsey’s essay on the age of 10, because my oldest child was 10 as well when we first wrote the series. Ten is also a watershed year that feels like a turning point to me between childhood and the Great Beyond (also known as middle school). It feels like that moment when a flame burns the brightest just before it starts to fade—the moment before your child becomes less your child and more a person of the world.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

I have processed my mothering through writing. Writing encourages me to see and remember the details of mothering my children—I use all the senses and try to use them in my writing. In many ways, I feel like I was reborn when I became a mother, like this is a whole different life than I had before. Writing has been a way to feel less alone.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

I think writing in and of itself is the reward. Sometimes I feel like I need to justify my writing as a “job” or as a purpose. Really, it’s enough just to write, to have captured both my children and myself in this moment in time. It doesn’t have to be a job to be meaningful.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

I hope readers will see that little bit of awesome that is the age of 5 in my writing and that it will remind them of how, apart from the daily grind of living, this life has so many moments of beauty and joy and wonder in it. I think 5-year-olds just radiate joy. They are pretty special.

Read an excerpt from Allison’s “This is Five” essay

This is Four: Galit Breen

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged children and childhood, emotions, Galit Breen, motherhood, parenting, This is Childhood, This is Four • Leave a comment

Kris Woll interviews Galit Breen, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

I wrote this piece when my youngest of three was right smack in the middle of this age. It felt new with him but strikingly old to me all at the same time. I loved learning how the moments—and my reactions to them—told his story as a 4-year-old, my story as a mom, and our story as a family.

What is it about age 4 you liked the most? The least?

I love the wild abandon and creativity of 4-year-olds. And the STRONG opinions and reactions— while fun, adorable, and story-worthy in retrospect—feel challenging to me in the moment.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 4-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I would tell myself—again and again—that my children’s true personalities are starting to form and to embrace that. Because not only is it lovely to get to watch it happen, but it’s also the very first chance to send them the message that I love them exactly how they are!

What other age/stage in this collection (which explores 1-10) is one you would like to explore more—or do you often find yourself turning to—in your writing?

I think about Lindsay’s piece—age 10—the most often. It’s a stage I haven’t reached yet, but am about to, and I love having Lindsay’s chartered-territory words to turn to for comfort and inspiration as my own daughter and I tiptoe into double digits.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

I started writing about motherhood when my youngest was an infant. It’s where I found my voice and my heart and learned how to use both within my words. I’m grateful for the two and see them as perfectly interlaced.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

My best advice is to write with equal parts honesty and kindness and with the crystal clear insight that your children will read your words one day so be purposeful and mindful about what and how you write about them.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

I hope that readers feel with each fiber of their being that every single stage of mothering and childhood has golden glints to it. So if you’re in a harder moment that’s stretching you more than feels comfortable—remember that it will pass. And if you’re feeling the bittersweetness of growth and change, remember that there are (many, many) more gems to come.

Photo credit: Nicole Spangler Photography
http://nicolespanglerphotography.com

Read Galit’s “This is Four” essay in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood.

This is Three: Nina Badzin

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page • Tagged children and childhood, motherhood, Nina Badzin, parenting, This is Childhood, This is Three • Leave a comment

Kris Woll interviews Nina Badzin, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

When Lindsey Mead and Allison Slater Tate put together the This is Childhood series and asked us to think about ages we’d like to represent, I quickly volunteered to cover age 3. I had not written much about that age before, but I felt I owed it something of a tribute since my oldest reaching the age of 3 was the first time I wasn’t terrified about doing everything wrong. My son and I could actually have conversations by then so that instead of worrying about what was wrong when he cried for seemingly no reason, I could simply ask him. Now he’s 9 and tells me often what’s on his mind, which doesn’t mean I always like what I hear.

What is it about age 3 you liked the most? The least?

I liked the new level of communication and ability. I disliked how long it took to do everything “by myself,” which has been the demand of every one of my children at that stage.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 3-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

My youngest child, Nate, is now two and a half so I’m back in that place where 3 is on the horizon. Nate’s in the stage where tantrums are a regular occurrence when he doesn’t get his way, which is often spurred by his inability to explain what he really wants. I’m glad I’ve had the chance to remember how much changes in the year between 3 and 4. I’ve heard many say they find 3 the hardest, most frustrating year. For me, that award has always gone to age 2 and I’m glad to be halfway through it at this point. I’m looking forward to seeing what a more talkative, patient (hopefully), and diaper-free Nate is like.

What other age/stage in this collection (which explores 1-10) is one you would like to explore more—or do you often find yourself turning to—in your writing?

I tend to write more about my older two kids (Sam, 9) and (Rebecca, 7). They’re so different from each other and from me. I love watching them become individuals with interests, skills, friendships, and even a spiritual life that’s all their own.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

I think writing about my kids helps me enjoy motherhood in a different way. It’s made me reflective about how and why I do the things I do. The frustrating bits (and there are plenty) make for good writing fodder, which is hard to remember in the moment, but I tend to appreciate that fact later.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

The best change I’ve made is working on the essays with deadlines first thing in the morning before the kids are awake. Then, if I have good pockets of time later in the day, I consider it free time to start new work or dip into short stories that are sitting in a file. I also use the extra time, when I have it, to play with the social media piece, which is fun for me, but time consuming. The whole writing process has become less harried now that I’m scheduling time to get the important work done first.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

I hope the collection encourages parents to jot down notes about their own quickly growing and changing children so they can capture a kid’s essence while the memories are still fresh.

Read Nina’s “This is Three” essay in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood.

This Is Two: Kristen Levithan

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged children and childhood, Kristen Levithan, motherhood, parenting, This is Childhood, This is Two • 4 Comments

Kris Woll interviews Kristen Levithan, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

My daughter is my third child, and I fear I haven’t been as diligent noting her milestones as I was with my oldest. In writing this essay, I hoped to create for her and myself a portrait in words of who she was at this age. Doing so inspired me to write about her more often; hopefully when she grows up she’ll have dozens of pages to read alongside the hundreds of photos I’ve taken.

What is it about age 2 you liked the most? The least?

With all three of my kids, I’ve loved the exuberance of 2—the running everywhere with purpose (even if that purpose is as simple as picking up a block (“A Bwock!”) from another room), the awestruck gaping at such things as bubbles, airplanes, and squirrels in trees—not to mention the explosion of language. My least favorite part of 2 is the sometimes endless, not necessarily rational, battles that accompany that language.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 2-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I spent a fair amount of time mourning the loss of the baby stage when my kids turned from tiny, helpless, infants to wandering, chattering toddlers. If I had to do it all over again, I would tell myself to enjoy each stage as much as the one that came before it, each age brings its own kind of wonder. (Then again, I doubt I would have believed it. It’s been my experience that the only way to “know” a stage of parenting is to go through it yourself.)

What other age/stage in this collection (which explores 1-10) is one you would like to explore more—or do you often find yourself turning to—in your writing?

My kids are now 6, 4, and 3 so I suppose it’s not surprising that I’m most intrigued by what others have to say about their experiences parenting kids the ages of my own. I find this increasingly tricky as my kids get older and I become more reticent writing about experiences that they themselves will remember. I’m interested to see how other parent-writers navigate that challenge.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit changed over time?

I came to writing through motherhood. I started blogging when my second son was a baby and started writing professionally a year later. The two have been interwoven for me ever since.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

Write down as much as you can: the details, the emotions, the hilarious quotes. You might not have time to process it now, but every snippet, no matter how brief or how tangential, counts. It’s the raw material of the story of your motherhood.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

In this day of Instagram and 140 character communications, I hope that readers will see real value in the act of slowing down to record the details of a moment in a child’s life. I hope that the collection inspires other parents to tell the story of who their own children were at each age. I’m a writer so I’m probably biased, but I’ve never been persuaded that a picture is worth a thousand words. I think a thousand words can be worth quite a lot indeed.

Read Kristen’s “This is Two” essay in This is Childhood, a book about the first years of childhood, and motherhood.

Subscribe to Brain, Child

This is One: Aidan Donnelley Rowley

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Kris Woll • Posted in Articles Page, General • Tagged Aidan Donnelley Rowley, children and childhood, family, motherhood, parenting, This is Childhood, This is One • 2 Comments

Kris Woll interviews Aidan Donnelley Rowley, a contributing writer in This is Childhood, a book and journal about the first years of childhood:

What was your inspiration for writing this piece? Have you written other things about this age/stage?

I think the 1 stage is an amazing time when our babies begin to become people with quirks and personalities. I was inspired to explore this nascent phase because I don’t think there is any other year quite like it in terms of development and evolution.

What is it about age 1 you liked the most? The least?

What I like most about age 1 is the tremendous change and development. Each new day seems to bring with it new words and new skills. What I like least about the age is that it is most often a pre-verbal stretch where communication is often tricky. This, as we all know, can be a recipe for tears and frustration.

What do you wish you knew before you had a 1-year-old, or what advice do you wish you could tell your former self about mothering at that particular stage?

I wish someone had told me to relax about this (& all other) ages, and that I had listened. As parents, we care tremendously about our little ones & the milestones they are meeting—or not meeting—and I think more often than not we fret more than is necessary. Looking back, I wish I had breathed a bit deeper & soaked up more moments instead of overanalyzing them.
Besides your own piece, which other piece in the collection do you relate to the most? Why?

Truth be told, I found myself relating in good part to all of the pieces up to age 7. My daughters are now 7, 5 and 3 and I truly think my This Is Childhood colleagues captured universal elements of these ages.

How do writing and mothering fit together for you? How has that fit over time?

This is a question I ask myself all the time and my answer evolves. Today, I can say that being a mother has improved my writing but has also made it more difficult because I’m more stretched for time and it’s a challenge to find adequate time to actually sit down and tap out words. These days, I wake extremely early (4:15!) many mornings to write before my girls are up. It’s exhausting, but I try not to lose track that it is a dream to be juggling my girls and my writing.

What is your advice to other mother writers?

I’m hesitant to give any advice, but something I tell myself is to be kind to myself and also forgiving. Raising children is an infinitely complex and magical thing to do and to try to write (or do anything else!) as well is downright difficult. We must do what we can, when we can, and not berate ourselves too much. Before we know it, our kids will be big and need us less and there will be more time to write and do other things that matter to us. We must soak up these chaotic moments before they are gone.

What do you hope readers will take with them from your piece? From this collection?

My hope is that readers will come away with a sense that parenthood is an abiding privilege. Wildly complex and trying, but magical all the same.

Read Aidan’s “This is One” essay in This is Childhood, a book about the first years of childhood and motherhood.

Subscribe to Brain, Child