Don't Look Down: A Graduation Guide for Parents

Over the past few weeks, my Facebook feed has made me abundantly aware that it's graduation season. Everyone, from kindergarten tots to the middle school-bound, high school seniors, and college grads are donning caps and gowns and big smiles. And their parents, in the precious few minutes of quiet, between hosting graduation brunches/lunches/dinners and posting photos of the celebrations, are reflecting on all that they have achieved, and by "they", I mean the parents. 

These moments, when you dare to look down from the tightrope that we call ordinary time, can be deeply satisfying, but mostly, they just make you dizzy. On the day of my own college graduation over 20 years ago, I remember this weird, frozen look on my mom's face. She also had that same look on the day of my graduation from my master's program, and on my wedding day. Was it a look of gratitude? A little. But, mostly, it was a look of astonishment, a look of bewilderment that this grand experiment called parenthood, and its 6,570 days of dirty laundry, school lunches, colds, coughs, fevers, picky eaters, praying, door-slamming, sleepovers, Cub Scouts, more praying, swim meets, dance recitals, permission slips, first dates, more praying, and curfews was all coming to an end and that she'd made it!  

So now, what do you do? Who do you become? Do you write that book you wanted to write? Do you take that trip that you always wanted? Do you finally quit that job that you've hated? You might not be wearing a cap and gown, but your child's graduation day marks the beginning of a new phase of your life, too:) 

The Cast-Offs: The Strange World of the Married without Children

Last year about this time I wrote of the common misconceptions made about those who have not conceived, whether by chance or by choice. The response to that piece has been and continues to be overwhelming - from both friends and family who are squarely on the baby bandwagon, and those who for various reasons are not. The discussions reached a fever pitch this year with the release of Jennifer Westfeldt's motion picture, "Friends with Kids,"a relationship piece that put the breeding wars front and center. This year also marked my tenth wedding anniversary and my fortieth birthday, two milestone events that force an appraisal of your life whether you want to or not. Well, I'm happy to report that the state of our union is good, very good, except for the one thing that's missing - our friends!

What? You thought I was going to say a child, didn't you? But, no, we've got plenty of children - nephews and the children of our friends who have become like our nieces and nephews, thus significantly expanding the kiddie pool. We have friends who have successfully adopted, and others who are still waiting, but hopeful. And there are even friends who've been paid surprise visits by the Stork, well after they had given away the last of the onesies and forgotten how to work the breast pump. It would seem our life is teeming with children, but not our friends.

Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, we get to experience the daily highs and lows of our friends and their families. We see happy babies on bouncies, 8-year-olds in their baseball uniforms, and a tutu or two on precious little ballerinas. We hear about scouting trips and epic Girl Scout Cookie sales figures to rival Mrs. Fields. Our more tech-savvy friends get us breaking news live Tweets from the scene of paint-peeling toddler temper tantrums and showdowns in the Babies R Us parking lot with suv-driving SOBs who almost mow them down while they and their little one are attempting to walk to their car. But that's all we get.

Somewhere between labor and delivery to high school graduation (and sometimes beyond), we got cast aside. Now, to be fair, it's been well-documented that parenting comes with all sorts of trade-offs and compromises - time, sleep, you know the drill, and I know the drill because I hear about it...a lot. My husband and I would be the super-understanding couple when our new-parent friends would cancel plans/not call/not invite us to their children's birthday parties. "No problem," we'd reply, "Of course it's ok." The problem, though, is that once your friends go from new-parent to just parent, the excuses don't stop, and soon, your parent-friends are friends with other parents and not you.

There was one parent couple who were always busy with their kids' merciless, and bottomless, schedule of team sport practices, games, recitals, sleepovers, camping trips, etc, ad nauseum. If we wanted to see them, we had to contact them months in advance, and even then, those plans could be changed on a dime if there was a last-minute scheduling oversight or the sniffles. We issued our standard, "no problem," but then we found out that our superbusy parent friends were apparently NOT too busy for the parents of their children's classmates/teammates. We felt betrayed, like a jealous lover thrown over for some shiny, new thing. These were our friends, in whom we confided our thoughts and feelings, with whom we'd shared meals and memories, and to whom we'd given an abundance of benefit of the doubt.  We had been moved from the A-list to the D-list on the friendship scale!

I know this isn't high school, but it certainly has the stink of high school where friendships are based on the "are you like me" index. I may not know the name of a good lactation consultant, but is that the ONLY thing two people can discuss?

So what are my options? Well, there aren't as many as you would imagine. While we do know couples who are child-less and child-free, most keep their schedules chock-a-block full, with every moment budgeted for work, volunteering, and travel. These couples are the ones who chair church committees and tirelessly perform community service (non-court ordered, I should add!!). They are on the boards of nonprofits and sing in community choirs. They have annual theatre subscriptions and love attending concerts by the local symphony orchestra, and, odds are that they've eaten at that hip new restaurant well before Yelp/Urbanspoon/Zagat has rated it. The reasons for the packed dancecard vary - for most it's a genuine interest in new experiences, but for some, there's a bit of wanting to avoid looking like they're bored or unhappy waiting for their parent-friends to call. Whatever the case, apparently our public relations masterplan has worked, because our parent-friends believe that they're doing us a favor by not calling!

Think about this, when that rare parent-friend does call or email (unprompted), what's the the thing they all say within the first 60 seconds/10 words? Is it something like "Wow, you guys are so busy!"?? 

Don't fall for it - it's a trap!

Implied in that statement is this: We would call you more often, but we figured since you're so busy it wouldn't matter if we called, so we don't. Get it?? It's YOUR fault that your parent-friends aren't calling. But it's not your fault, they simply don't want to be your friends anymore.

Sounds harsh? Well, it's time for some tough love. As selfless and sacrificing as parents are called to be in their role of unpaid caregiver, parenting is an extremely selfish endeavor. Parents move heaven and earth for their children and their family unit. Whatever resource they have - of time, effort, money, etc. - is used up in the service of their individual family. If there is a remainder, it must be fed back to the family unit. Society expects this, hell, society demands this. The definition of a "good parent" leaves no margin for friendships that don't do double-duty. If you're a good parent, you expose your children to numerous opportunities for enrichment - sports, music, nature, art, foreign languages, religious instruction. So you develop friendships of survival and convenience with the other moms and dads whose children are also involved in the same sports, music, nature, art, foreign language, religious instruction enrichment opportunities as your children. It's not long before the mom who your child carpools with after softball practice becomes your friend, and soon you're both sitting in the stands, swapping recipes and exchanging thoughts on the latest gossip surrounding the new ball field upgrade. And while it's great that you're making friends with a fellow traveler on your parenthood path, you're also leaving behind a friend, and a new cast-off is born. And worst of all is that you justify it by saying to yourself, "well, she's SO busy all the time, I'm sure she's got lots to do."

Here's the thing - a packed to-do list can't replace a friendship that's taken years to develop and nurture.

So what can be done? Maybe we need to go a bit "old school" with our notions of parenting and friendship. Growing up, my mom's closest friends were a mix of single, married without children, and empty-nester. When Mom wanted to see her friends, she'd pack us in the car and over to their homes we would go. My sister and I would sit reading a book or watching TV while Mom caught up with her friends. These women became my Aunties and they've remained important in my mom's life as well as the life of our family. Their enduring friendship is the model for my own friendships where the line of demarcation is not drawn at the car-seat, well, at least not by me.

I'm just saying.

Childless or Child-Free?

(This post was originally published on March 31, 2011)

I have now reached an age where people are trying to figure out if I am childless or child-free. It's a curious place to be in this Middle Earth that lies somewhere between pity and contempt. If you're child-less, you are a poor soul, but if you're child-free, you're a selfish lout who's denying the basic maternal instinct. However, it's often hard to tell which is which. While there are a lot of people who will just straight up ask you if you're ever planning to have children (and that's with sarcastic emphasis on the "ever"), we, the women without children, often demure, opting for an answer that will not paint ourselves into an ideological corner, and thus prompting even more annoying, invasive follow-up questions. When I didn't provide a conclusive answer to one particularly curious mom who also attended my church, I soon had a special delivery of medical pamphlets on infertility to my home (damn those parish directories!!), and months of awkward greetings at the coffee hour.

The truth is that for some of us, we may not be able to biologically conceive a child or carry a pregnancy to term, and for others of us, we may simply not want to trade in our quiet weekends for soccer practices or children's birthday parties. Whatever the reason, though, by chance or by choice, I've found that whether you're child-less or child-free, we battle common misconceptions and assumptions. We've all been the recipient of or a witness to one of those Grand Inquisitions that goes something like this:

So, do you two have any kids?
No, not yet.
So what are you waiting for?
Just waiting for the right time, but we're trying.
Well, don't wait too long, because if you do it might be too late. Have you thought about adopting?

Or this one:

So, do you two have any kids?
No.
Well, why not?
We don't want children.
Well, how can you not want children? You know, I once felt the same way until we had [fill in adorable baby name]. Now, I can't imagine my life without him/her.

Exchanges like these have, for years, put us on the defensive, forcing us to question who we are and what we value. Worse yet, we've become socially marginalized by our fertile friends who assume that we are indifferent to or hate children. But all of that stops today because I'm throwing down the gauntlet on this uterine apartheid! Child-less or child-free, if you have to ask me, then obviously it's none of your business, and as a parent, you should be sensitive enough to the needs of others to know that.

Now if you're having a hard time, and your curiosity is getting the better of you, then we, the women without children, are going to help you. When you ask us if we have children, we're going to answer, "No," and then we're going to end the discussion. That's it, no long, drawn out, carefully parsed answer nuanced to within an inch of its life, just "No." And when you persist, and insist on asking us about possible medical causes for our "condition", then we're going to say that it's none of your business. Now, we're not going to do all of the work, here. For your part, you're going to invite us to your children's birthday parties, and stop with the friggin' apologies if your baby is fussy when we hold them (our egos aren't that fragile). If we ask you a parenting question, don't be a jerk and look at us like we're the most ignorant person in the world. And, conversely, don't use it as an opportunity to revisit bad habits and ask us if we're planning on having children.

So, child-less or child-free? Only God and my OB/GYN needs to know! I'm just saying:)

The Elusive Female Friendship

Ladies, I want you to look around and do a whip-count of your female friends (that sounds waaay too clinical, so let's call them LFs for "Lady Friends").

From that group of LF's, I want you to think about the following ten questions:

1. Which of these LFs would I ask to babysit my child?
2. Which LF could I trust to tell about my relationship/marital troubles?
3. Which LF do I trust least with my husband?
4. Which LF would help me move houses?
5. Which LF would I ask to go to church with me?
6. Which LF could I call at 3:00AM if my car broke down?
7. Which LF could I cry with?
8. Which LF would cry for me?
9. Which LF would pray for me?
10. Which LF would I pray for?

If you have someone in mind for numbers 5-10 on this list, then you've got at least one really good friend. And if you have someone in mind for number 3, well, then I suggest you drop her because that's just foolish to call someone you can't trust your friend! But, back to my point, and the fact that a lot of us are walking around here without a true LF.

Back in high school, college, and grad school, you could make friends without really trying. There were long stretches of available time outside of the lecture halls, and even trips to the library became boisterous colloquies. My girlfriends and I weathered the storms of life - crappy boyfriends, tough classes, my growing shoe habit, and the perils of an empty wallet after a night dancing at one of the clubs in Fenway.

And then, one day, we graduated, and then we scattered, and then it was 16 years later. We are wives, and mommies, and managers, and Sunday school teachers now. Our lives are full to bursting with meetings, more meetings, date nights (if we can find the time and find the babysitter). We are lists - priority lists, to-do lists, grocery lists, Christmas lists. We live our lives on a treadmill, cramming the hours, minutes, seconds, and frames of seconds, with a choreographed chaos.

But you can't just add "make friends" to your list of things to do. You can't just decide to become BFFs with the mother of your son's soccer teammate or pull a "Single White Female" on the other soprano in your church's choir, all in an attempt to bring the friendship that's been missing in your life back to you. Finding that true female friend is like trying to find that other elusive thing that we women talk about with a sense of anxiety and deep frustration - that's right, the perfect purse, but that's a WHOLE other conversation!

I'm just saying!!