Annabel Monaghan's Blog, page 7

Test post

As published in The Week on September 4, 2015

Teenagers fool us with their size, vocabulary, and swift mastery of new devices. They seem to be about the right shape to fit into the adult world. They drive cars. They know algebra. So it’s always momentarily shocking to find out that they don’t know how to address an envelope or operate a can opener.

My kids are the only people in my house who are as smart as my smart TV. I honestly have to enlist their help every time I want to change the channel. They know how to work Netflix, and they can figure out how to get WiFi anywhere in the world. And yet…

My son recently started a road trip by quickly clicking an address on his phone’s GPS. He then drove to the exact right address in the wrong state. It’s these little things that you’d never think to explain that turn out to be big things. When he was leaving, should I have added “Go to the right state!” to my standard “Make good choices!”?

My teenagers know Pi to 20 decimal places, but they do not understand why keys matter. Their house keys are used and discarded like tissues. I sat dumbfounded as my husband explained to them the etymology of the word “key.” The reason people refer to the most important part as the “key” part is that keys are really important. Seriously, I wondered, does this even need to be said? How could a person with the motor skills to operate a key not know this?

Honestly.

They know all the elements on the periodic table. They can name every starting player for every team in the NBA. But they were surprised to learn that chicken, left on the counter overnight, goes bad. At some point, facts like this become a matter of survival.

Of course some of this is just the teenage brain, designed like a sieve and with an incomplete prefrontal cortex. But it’s also just a lack of information. Their defense is simple and consistent: “I didn’t know that was a thing.” That explanation should find its way into a scientific journal.

I didn’t know that was a thing. This phrase echoes in my mind, bringing me back to those hazy, soupy teen years when I could only see a few feet ahead of myself. My parents probably shook their heads a lot, but they didn’t try to spoon feed me facts. No one waved from the bus stop shouting, “Have a good day! Don’t drink water from a still pond! Run in a zig zag if a bear chases you!” Everything I know I learned from cartoons or calamity.

There are a million things I never knew were a thing. When I was 19, I bought a used Volkswagen for $500. At the time I knew a lot about French literature and pretty much everything about William Faulkner. But I didn’t know you needed to put oil in a car. No one had ever told me, so I didn’t know that was a thing.

That same year I backpacked all over Europe with my passport in my back pocket. Now that I think of it, passports could be described as “key.” I didn’t know that was a thing either.

I can work myself into a panic thinking of all the things that my kids probably don’t know. Don’t drink soda and eat pop rocks, or your head will explode. Never put your drink down at a bar. A person who has to say “to be honest” isn’t going to be. If you see the shoreline rise rapidly, run!

This must be why parents just stick to the basics: Look both ways before crossing the street, wash your hands, don’t let the bedbugs bite. The rest of it is going to be filled in along the way, an education provided not by us, but by a series of small catastrophes that they’ll likely survive.

The post Test post appeared first on Annabel Monaghan.

Teenagers Prove That You Can Simultaneously Know Everything and Nothing

As published in The Week on September 4, 2015

Teenagers fool us with their size, vocabulary, and swift mastery of new devices. They seem to be about the right shape to fit into the adult world. They drive cars. They know algebra. So it’s always momentarily shocking to find out that they don’t know how to address an envelope or operate a can opener.

My kids are the only people in my house who are as smart as my smart TV. I honestly have to enlist their help every time I want to change the channel. They know how to work Netflix, and they can figure out how to get WiFi anywhere in the world. And yet…

My son recently started a road trip by quickly clicking an address on his phone’s GPS. He then drove to the exact right address in the wrong state. It’s these little things that you’d never think to explain that turn out to be big things. When he was leaving, should I have added “Go to the right state!” to my standard “Make good choices!”?

My teenagers know Pi to 20 decimal places, but they do not understand why keys matter. Their house keys are used and discarded like tissues. I sat dumbfounded as my husband explained to them the etymology of the word “key.” The reason people refer to the most important part as the “key” part is that keys are really important. Seriously, I wondered, does this even need to be said? How could a person with the motor skills to operate a key not know this?

Honestly.

They know all the elements on the periodic table. They can name every starting player for every team in the NBA. But they were surprised to learn that chicken, left on the counter overnight, goes bad. At some point, facts like this become a matter of survival.

Of course some of this is just the teenage brain, designed like a sieve and with an incomplete prefrontal cortex. But it’s also just a lack of information. Their defense is simple and consistent: “I didn’t know that was a thing.” That explanation should find its way into a scientific journal.

I didn’t know that was a thing. This phrase echoes in my mind, bringing me back to those hazy, soupy teen years when I could only see a few feet ahead of myself. My parents probably shook their heads a lot, but they didn’t try to spoon feed me facts. No one waved from the bus stop shouting, “Have a good day! Don’t drink water from a still pond! Run in a zig zag if a bear chases you!” Everything I know I learned from cartoons or calamity.

There are a million things I never knew were a thing. When I was 19, I bought a used Volkswagen for $500. At the time I knew a lot about French literature and pretty much everything about William Faulkner. But I didn’t know you needed to put oil in a car. No one had ever told me, so I didn’t know that was a thing.

That same year I backpacked all over Europe with my passport in my back pocket. Now that I think of it, passports could be described as “key.” I didn’t know that was a thing either.

I can work myself into a panic thinking of all the things that my kids probably don’t know. Don’t drink soda and eat pop rocks, or your head will explode. Never put your drink down at a bar. A person who has to say “to be honest” isn’t going to be. If you see the shoreline rise rapidly, run!

This must be why parents just stick to the basics: Look both ways before crossing the street, wash your hands, don’t let the bedbugs bite. The rest of it is going to be filled in along the way, an education provided not by us, but by a series of small catastrophes that they’ll likely survive.

The post Teenagers Prove That You Can Simultaneously Know Everything and Nothing appeared first on Annabel Monaghan.

Why It’s Impossible to Write a Good College Admission Essay

As published in The Week on June 25, 2015

As the parent of a rising high school senior, I’ve been to my fair share of college information sessions lately. The admissions officer always concludes with the same set of comments about the application: namely, that the college essay must capture your true and authentic voice and reveal the essence of who you really are. Exactly that line, 100 percent of the time.

I look over at my son every time, his eyes glazed over. I love this kid, and the essence of who he really is astounds me. But there is no way in hell that he, flipping through his Instagrams and quietly plotting his next meal, is going to have an easy time summing up his essential him-ness in 500 words.

Heck, I’m 45 and I am just beginning to find my voice. Show me a 17-year-old kid who’s able access his true and authentic voice in a way that shares the essence of who he really is, and I’ll show you a kid who maybe doesn’t need to go to college.

My college essay went something like this:

I am the student body president of my high school. In this capacity it has been my job, along with the rest of the student council, to review our school’s honor code. Upon this review we found that a discrepancy existed between the school’s policies on cheating and stealing. Heretofore, this had not been addressed. I strive to excel in all areas of my life, and I hope to bring this energy to college so that I can make an impact there as well.

They read this, and they let me into college. “Every class could use a good solid narc,” they must have said. “Let’s let this honor nerd in.”

If I had really wanted to share my 17-year-old essence in my true authentic voice, I would have submitted this:

I’m so tired from all this schoolwork and this thing with the student council. I’m sorry I even brought it up, because now the whole honor code needs to be re-written. Luckily Michelle Jaffe is senior class president and smarter than me and she’ll do it. Whatever, Michelle. My friends and I go to the beach a lot. My friend Julie and I like to stop for grilled cheese and fries on our way, and we’ve found that one place has better grilled cheese and another has better fries, so we stop twice. I think it’s important to know what you want and go out of your way to get it. There’s a boy I like, and I really hope he calls me. Also, I’d like to go to college because it’s time to move out and my friends are all going.

This is the girl that showed up on campus, the one with the two-part plan for procuring the best in fried food. There was more to me at this point, most of which I can only see in retrospect. There were buds of character traits, hints of interests. But, at 17, they were not clear to me in a way that I could have explained to a team of admissions officers thousands of miles away.

I think a better way to get to know these kids would be to ask a series of questions about their habits. “How often do you make your bed?” would be a good place to start. Studies show that people who make their beds have a whole host of positive life habits. And it might shed a little light on the kids who describe themselves as “dedicated to service.” If you really wake up in the morning looking for new ways to serve, you probably start by making your bed. Zero percent of the teenagers currently living in my house makes their bed on a regular basis.

So my kid is going to write this essay in the next few months. I’ve been politely asked not to help, which makes me want to strangle him and hug him at the same time. I hope he gets across some of the real things about himself. He likes math, but not as much as he likes his friends. He likes history, but not as much as he likes Chipotle. That’s the kid who’s going to show up at college, ready to figure the rest out.

Why It’s Impossible to Write a Good College Admission Essay

As published in The Week on June 25, 2015

As the parent of a rising high school senior, I’ve been to my fair share of college information sessions lately. The admissions officer always concludes with the same set of comments about the application: namely, that the college essay must capture your true and authentic voice and reveal the essence of who you really are. Exactly that line, 100 percent of the time.

I look over at my son every time, his eyes glazed over. I love this kid, and the essence of who he really is astounds me. But there is no way in hell that he, flipping through his Instagrams and quietly plotting his next meal, is going to have an easy time summing up his essential him-ness in 500 words.

Heck, I’m 45 and I am just beginning to find my voice. Show me a 17-year-old kid who’s able access his true and authentic voice in a way that shares the essence of who he really is, and I’ll show you a kid who maybe doesn’t need to go to college.

My college essay went something like this:

I am the student body president of my high school. In this capacity it has been my job, along with the rest of the student council, to review our school’s honor code. Upon this review we found that a discrepancy existed between the school’s policies on cheating and stealing. Heretofore, this had not been addressed. I strive to excel in all areas of my life, and I hope to bring this energy to college so that I can make an impact there as well.

They read this, and they let me into college. “Every class could use a good solid narc,” they must have said. “Let’s let this honor nerd in.”

If I had really wanted to share my 17-year-old essence in my true authentic voice, I would have submitted this:

I’m so tired from all this schoolwork and this thing with the student council. I’m sorry I even brought it up, because now the whole honor code needs to be re-written. Luckily Michelle Jaffe is senior class president and smarter than me and she’ll do it. Whatever, Michelle. My friends and I go to the beach a lot. My friend Julie and I like to stop for grilled cheese and fries on our way, and we’ve found that one place has better grilled cheese and another has better fries, so we stop twice. I think it’s important to know what you want and go out of your way to get it. There’s a boy I like, and I really hope he calls me. Also, I’d like to go to college because it’s time to move out and my friends are all going.

This is the girl that showed up on campus, the one with the two-part plan for procuring the best in fried food. There was more to me at this point, most of which I can only see in retrospect. There were buds of character traits, hints of interests. But, at 17, they were not clear to me in a way that I could have explained to a team of admissions officers thousands of miles away.

I think a better way to get to know these kids would be to ask a series of questions about their habits. “How often do you make your bed?” would be a good place to start. Studies show that people who make their beds have a whole host of positive life habits. And it might shed a little light on the kids who describe themselves as “dedicated to service.” If you really wake up in the morning looking for new ways to serve, you probably start by making your bed. Zero percent of the teenagers currently living in my house makes their bed on a regular basis.

So my kid is going to write this essay in the next few months. I’ve been politely asked not to help, which makes me want to strangle him and hug him at the same time. I hope he gets across some of the real things about himself. He likes math, but not as much as he likes his friends. He likes history, but not as much as he likes Chipotle. That’s the kid who’s going to show up at college, ready to figure the rest out.

The post Why It’s Impossible to Write a Good College Admission Essay appeared first on Annabel Monaghan.

Now Extinct: The Cringe-Worthy Prom Photo

As published in The Week on May 27, 2015

As I feverishly photographed my son and his friends before the prom, it occurred to me that something was not right. The boys looked as I expected in black tuxes and combed hair. But the girls were all wrong. Their dresses were simple and flattering. Their make-up was applied, not caked. The wind blew and their hair actually moved a little. What the heck? Where’s the black eyeliner? Where’s the stench of Aqua Net? Where, I need to know, are Madonna’s lace gloves?

This was not the prom I knew.

When I think of the prom, my frame of reference is 1987. I conjure an image of a me-shaped girl peering out from under a helmet of hair and a mask of make-up. I have to assume that today’s girls have been scared straight by their mothers’ bad 80s style. They are a sea of good choices, timeless in one tasteful dress after another. These girls will never look back and cringe at their prom photos the way my generation does.

The hair! The bling!

While my prom memories are mercifully selective, the photographs endure. They turn up like bad pennies over the years, concentrated shots of humility. When I happen upon them, I jump back like I’ve unearthed White Snake. People say that if you don’t like a photograph of yourself, you should wait five years and you’ll love it. These people were not photographed in the 1980’s.

My hair was styled in a manner that defied both gravity and common decency. The look was achieved with the help of some mousse, a diffuser and the occasional scrunchi. If my style gurus were Madonna and Einstein, I totally nailed it. Maybe you had a perm, maybe you had bad highlights, maybe you had feathered bangs. If you were me, you had all of them. And you thought it looked pretty darn good.

My dresses seem to have been chosen to compete with my hair. “Look at me,” they shouted. “I’m crazy and in bad taste too!” I had a dress that was skin tight and made of red suede, a female Eddie Murphy. I had another that was canary yellow and poofed out at the hips before going straight down, making me look like an anaconda digesting a giraffe. There was a white one, made of lace but somehow also impossibly tight due to a clever use of spandex and netting. The ingenuity that would later create the tech boom was dedicated to prom dress design in the 80s.

Red suede. Always the perfect choice for springtime in L.A.

The style motto of the 80s was “More is More.” Put your make up on, and then put it on again. If your bracelets aren’t stacked all the way up to your elbows, keep ‘em coming. Eight or nine rings were standard, I mean God gave us ten fingers after all. Our lips were red, our brows were black and our cheekbones were Pat Benatar razor sharp. I look at these photos and wonder what boy would be brave enough to dance with any of us.

This current crop of prom goers seems to understand that a teenage girl doesn’t need much to look beautiful. Simple hair, a simple dress and a smile. I mourn the time and dignity we could have saved if we’d known this too.

The good news is that my friends and I collectively think we look a lot better now than we did on prom night. Not one of us thinks we peaked in high school. What we’ve lost in collagen, we’ve gained in judgment. I’ve got a million photos to prove it.

 

Now Extinct: The Cringe-Worthy Prom Photo

As published in The Week on May 27, 2015

As I feverishly photographed my son and his friends before the prom, it occurred to me that something was not right. The boys looked as I expected in black tuxes and combed hair. But the girls were all wrong. Their dresses were simple and flattering. Their make-up was applied, not caked. The wind blew and their hair actually moved a little. What the heck? Where’s the black eyeliner? Where’s the stench of Aqua Net? Where, I need to know, are Madonna’s lace gloves?

This was not the prom I knew.

When I think of the prom, my frame of reference is 1987. I conjure an image of a me-shaped girl peering out from under a helmet of hair and a mask of make-up. I have to assume that today’s girls have been scared straight by their mothers’ bad 80s style. They are a sea of good choices, timeless in one tasteful dress after another. These girls will never look back and cringe at their prom photos the way my generation does.

The hair! The bling!

While my prom memories are mercifully selective, the photographs endure. They turn up like bad pennies over the years, concentrated shots of humility. When I happen upon them, I jump back like I’ve unearthed White Snake. People say that if you don’t like a photograph of yourself, you should wait five years and you’ll love it. These people were not photographed in the 1980’s.

My hair was styled in a manner that defied both gravity and common decency. The look was achieved with the help of some mousse, a diffuser and the occasional scrunchi. If my style gurus were Madonna and Einstein, I totally nailed it. Maybe you had a perm, maybe you had bad highlights, maybe you had feathered bangs. If you were me, you had all of them. And you thought it looked pretty darn good.

My dresses seem to have been chosen to compete with my hair. “Look at me,” they shouted. “I’m crazy and in bad taste too!” I had a dress that was skin tight and made of red suede, a female Eddie Murphy. I had another that was canary yellow and poofed out at the hips before going straight down, making me look like an anaconda digesting a giraffe. There was a white one, made of lace but somehow also impossibly tight due to a clever use of spandex and netting. The ingenuity that would later create the tech boom was dedicated to prom dress design in the 80s.

Red suede. Always the perfect choice for springtime in L.A.

The style motto of the 80s was “More is More.” Put your make up on, and then put it on again. If your bracelets aren’t stacked all the way up to your elbows, keep ‘em coming. Eight or nine rings were standard, I mean God gave us ten fingers after all. Our lips were red, our brows were black and our cheekbones were Pat Benatar razor sharp. I look at these photos and wonder what boy would be brave enough to dance with any of us.

This current crop of prom goers seems to understand that a teenage girl doesn’t need much to look beautiful. Simple hair, a simple dress and a smile. I mourn the time and dignity we could have saved if we’d known this too.

The good news is that my friends and I collectively think we look a lot better now than we did on prom night. Not one of us thinks we peaked in high school. What we’ve lost in collagen, we’ve gained in judgment. I’ve got a million photos to prove it.

 

The post Now Extinct: The Cringe-Worthy Prom Photo appeared first on Annabel Monaghan.

Check the Toilet Seat First (And Other Things Boy Moms Know)

When people introduce me in either social or professional situations, there are two facts that they usually mention: that I am a writer, and that I am the mother of three boys. Hearing these facts about my life never gets old, as I can’t think of anything I’d rather be than a writer and a mother of these three boys. But it always strikes me as funny that they mention the boys specifically. I imagine that if I had two boys and a girl, I’d simply be referred to as a writer and a mother of three. Full stop. There’s something about having three of a kind that seems noteworthy, both for what it is and what it lacks.

When I’m introduced to another mother of only boys, there are a few seconds of expectation on the part of the introducer. Like maybe we are going to have a secret handshake. Or maybe we are going to say, “Hey are there black handprint marks all over your walls? Me too!” Instead, we nod our heads and exchange a little smile, knowing we are kindred. Having boys leads to a set of personality traits, namely that you’re not fussy and that you roll with the (actual) punches. If you have a bunch of boys, you’ve probably seen a femur up close and you can get blood out of anything.

A boy shaped hole in the drywall

You might as well introduce me with, “She’s a writer and is laid back about property damage.” People would understand. Property damage is to boy moms what frequent costume changes are to girl moms. A golf club through the drywall, a child through the drywall, and a basketball game ending triumphantly with glass showering down from the ceiling lights. That’s just what being a boy mom is. It’s knowing the number of the window repair company by heart, and not having to tell them your address when you call.

Boy moms buy eggs four-dozen at a time. We’re why they package 32 English muffins together at Costco. An English muffin with peanut butter on it will sate our starving boys for up to 25 minutes, enough time to boil up some macaroni and cheese or order a pizza. We are slightly afraid of our growing and starving brood, because their collective hunger comes at us with such force and frequency. I’ve been known to throw down a plate of bacon and run out of the room like a lion trainer fleeing the cage.

We have time for all this food shopping and prep because we do not shop for clothes. We do not meander through the mall, browsing the new spring fashions. We buy socks like we buy eggs, dozens at a time. When we need to buy clothes for our children, our shopping list reads “everything, the next size up.” And that usually works out fine. We shop for ourselves, of course, though we don’t really need to. Not one person in my house knows what kind of jeans I should be wearing this season. For this, I am particularly grateful.

The other, unspoken thing that bonds us is what we don’t have: a daughter. Sometimes the fact that I don’t have a daughter surprises me so much that I check myself like I’m patting my pockets for my keys. She’s got to be around here somewhere, I have so much to tell her! All these hard-earned girl lessons just roll around my head, waiting for eager ears. She’d probably just roll her eyes anyway. Really, Mom? What do you know about boys? Ha! The irony!

Without a daughter, I wonder about the future of my stuff. Every year on Thanksgiving I try to get one of my sons excited about my mom’s gravy boat. Every year someone asks if it wouldn’t just be easier to serve the gravy out of the roasting pan on the stove. Easier? It would have been easier to just order a pizza, but that’s not the point. It is my greatest hope that someday they’ll sit down to dinner with their own families (just having repaired their own drywall), see that gravy boat, and get the point.

We won’t go prom dress shopping. We won’t pick the wedding venue. We won’t be in the delivery room. We won’t ever, ever sit on a toilet before thoroughly inspecting it first. But we will strive to raise kind, conscious, able young men. All of this is acknowledged when boy moms meet and exchange a little nod and a smile. The nod is for the food prep and the property damage; but the smile is for all the rest – the sweetness of a little boy, and the way he grabs your heart with his dirty hands and never lets go.

 

Check the Toilet Seat First (And Other Things Boy Moms Know)

As published in The Week on May 4, 2015

When people introduce me in either social or professional situations, there are two facts that they usually mention: that I am a writer, and that I am the mother of three boys. Hearing these facts about my life never gets old, as I can’t think of anything I’d rather be than a writer and a mother of these three boys. But it always strikes me as funny that they mention the boys specifically. I imagine that if I had two boys and a girl, I’d simply be referred to as a writer and a mother of three. Full stop. There’s something about having three of a kind that seems noteworthy, both for what it is and what it lacks.

When I’m introduced to another mother of only boys, there are a few seconds of expectation on the part of the introducer. Like maybe we are going to have a secret handshake. Or maybe we are going to say, “Hey are there black handprint marks all over your walls? Me too!” Instead, we nod our heads and exchange a little smile, knowing we are kindred. Having boys leads to a set of personality traits, namely that you’re not fussy and that you roll with the (actual) punches. If you have a bunch of boys, you’ve probably seen a femur up close and you can get blood out of anything.

A boy shaped hole in the drywall

You might as well introduce me with, “She’s a writer and is laid back about property damage.” People would understand. Property damage is to boy moms what frequent costume changes are to girl moms. A golf club through the drywall, a child through the drywall, and a basketball game ending triumphantly with glass showering down from the ceiling lights. That’s just what being a boy mom is. It’s knowing the number of the window repair company by heart, and not having to tell them your address when you call.

Boy moms buy eggs four-dozen at a time. We’re why they package 32 English muffins together at Costco. An English muffin with peanut butter on it will sate our starving boys for up to 25 minutes, enough time to boil up some macaroni and cheese or order a pizza. We are slightly afraid of our growing and starving brood, because their collective hunger comes at us with such force and frequency. I’ve been known to throw down a plate of bacon and run out of the room like a lion trainer fleeing the cage.

We have time for all this food shopping and prep because we do not shop for clothes. We do not meander through the mall, browsing the new spring fashions. We buy socks like we buy eggs, dozens at a time. When we need to buy clothes for our children, our shopping list reads “everything, the next size up.” And that usually works out fine. We shop for ourselves, of course, though we don’t really need to. Not one person in my house knows what kind of jeans I should be wearing this season. For this, I am particularly grateful.

The other, unspoken thing that bonds us is what we don’t have: a daughter. Sometimes the fact that I don’t have a daughter surprises me so much that I check myself like I’m patting my pockets for my keys. She’s got to be around here somewhere, I have so much to tell her! All these hard-earned girl lessons just roll around my head, waiting for eager ears. She’d probably just roll her eyes anyway. Really, Mom? What do you know about boys? Ha! The irony!

Without a daughter, I wonder about the future of my stuff. Every year on Thanksgiving I try to get one of my sons excited about my mom’s gravy boat. Every year someone asks if it wouldn’t just be easier to serve the gravy out of the roasting pan on the stove. Easier? It would have been easier to just order a pizza, but that’s not the point. It is my greatest hope that someday they’ll sit down to dinner with their own families (just having repaired their own drywall), see that gravy boat, and get the point.

We won’t go prom dress shopping. We won’t pick the wedding venue. We won’t be in the delivery room. We won’t ever, ever sit on a toilet before thoroughly inspecting it first. But we will strive to raise kind, conscious, able young men. All of this is acknowledged when boy moms meet and exchange a little nod and a smile. The nod is for the food prep and the property damage; but the smile is for all the rest – the sweetness of a little boy, and the way he grabs your heart with his dirty hands and never lets go.

 

The post Check the Toilet Seat First (And Other Things Boy Moms Know) appeared first on Annabel Monaghan.

Giving Away the Old Books (and grabbing half of them back!)

I admit that I’m unusually attached to paper. Words on paper, to be specific. I save select cards, notes and love letters in a box that I’ve been carting from state to state for nearly thirty years. Those letters have an energy to them, the visual of the handwriting, either confident or unsure, takes me back to the moment that they were received. I feel that way about books that I’ve spent time with too. Sometimes a book will call to me from the bookshelf, as if to remind me of something it once told me. I open it to find a little sand between the pages or the mark of a late night cup of tea. We have shared something, that book and I.

Never has this attachment been more poignant than during my once-a-decade spring cleaning. I decided that it was time to go through and cull the herd of children’s books that I’d been carrying around for nearly seventeen years. That moment in my life has passed, and I knew it was time to clear the decks and move on. It started out smoothly enough, with the complete set of Berenstain Bears books in the giveaway pile. My kids had learned pretty much all they needed to know about the first day of school and exchanging valentines. Plus those books took forever to read and my kids always chose them on my most exhausted nights. To be honest, I kind of resent those preachy bears.

Same for The Magic Tree House series. It was magic, and now it’s over.

“I’ve got a loose tooth!”

It was the hardcover picture books that were most painful to part with. In many cases it wasn’t the stories themselves that held value, but the hours spent in communion with them, reading and re-reading until my sons and I knew the words by heart. Crayon is scribbled all over the bullies who teased Yoko when she brought sushi to school, evidence of a five year old’s budding empathy. Each book held the memory of a shared emotional rollercoaster, as Sal lost her first tooth or Harry got that ugly dog sweater for a gift. We’ve all been there.

 

Some decisions were easy: The Seven Silly Eaters, I decided, will be pried from my cold dead hands. Time For Bed will rest on my bedside table at the nursing home. There was a copy of Goodnight Moon, inscribed to my youngest son by my mother. I found it in her apartment after she passed away, because she hadn’t been able to make that last visit to give it to him. Um, yes, I’m keeping it.

Other books I talked myself out of. Some we hadn’t read in years, some of them never even made it into the rotation with my third child. How important could they be? I’m (please dear Lord) not going to have grandchildren for maybe 15 years. Am I going hang onto them so that I can hand over a dusty stack of books and be accused of giving the baby asthma? I convinced myself that I was doing more good putting them into someone else’s hands than by hoarding them for the not-yet-born.

I’ve finally dropped all of these books at Midland School for the book sale room at their fair. I admit that I drove around with those bags in my car for a week before I could bring my self to let them go, and that I snuck into the trunk and rescued a few every day of that week. It feels like progress to have cleared out the space, but I say it’s 50/50 that I end up going to the fair and buying half of them back.

See you at the fair!

 

 

Giving Away the Old Books (and grabbing half of them back!)

As Published in The Rye Record on April 17, 2015

I admit that I’m unusually attached to paper. Words on paper, to be specific. I save select cards, notes and love letters in a box that I’ve been carting from state to state for nearly thirty years. Those letters have an energy to them, the visual of the handwriting, either confident or unsure, takes me back to the moment that they were received. I feel that way about books that I’ve spent time with too. Sometimes a book will call to me from the bookshelf, as if to remind me of something it once told me. I open it to find a little sand between the pages or the mark of a late night cup of tea. We have shared something, that book and I.

Never has this attachment been more poignant than during my once-a-decade spring cleaning. I decided that it was time to go through and cull the herd of children’s books that I’d been carrying around for nearly seventeen years. That moment in my life has passed, and I knew it was time to clear the decks and move on. It started out smoothly enough, with the complete set of Berenstain Bears books in the giveaway pile. My kids had learned pretty much all they needed to know about the first day of school and exchanging valentines. Plus those books took forever to read and my kids always chose them on my most exhausted nights. To be honest, I kind of resent those preachy bears.

Same for The Magic Tree House series. It was magic, and now it’s over.

“I’ve got a loose tooth!”

It was the hardcover picture books that were most painful to part with. In many cases it wasn’t the stories themselves that held value, but the hours spent in communion with them, reading and re-reading until my sons and I knew the words by heart. Crayon is scribbled all over the bullies who teased Yoko when she brought sushi to school, evidence of a five year old’s budding empathy. Each book held the memory of a shared emotional rollercoaster, as Sal lost her first tooth or Harry got that ugly dog sweater for a gift. We’ve all been there.

 

Some decisions were easy: The Seven Silly Eaters, I decided, will be pried from my cold dead hands. Time For Bed will rest on my bedside table at the nursing home. There was a copy of Goodnight Moon, inscribed to my youngest son by my mother. I found it in her apartment after she passed away, because she hadn’t been able to make that last visit to give it to him. Um, yes, I’m keeping it.

Other books I talked myself out of. Some we hadn’t read in years, some of them never even made it into the rotation with my third child. How important could they be? I’m (please dear Lord) not going to have grandchildren for maybe 15 years. Am I going hang onto them so that I can hand over a dusty stack of books and be accused of giving the baby asthma? I convinced myself that I was doing more good putting them into someone else’s hands than by hoarding them for the not-yet-born.

I’ve finally dropped all of these books at Midland School for the book sale room at their fair. I admit that I drove around with those bags in my car for a week before I could bring my self to let them go, and that I snuck into the trunk and rescued a few every day of that week. It feels like progress to have cleared out the space, but I say it’s 50/50 that I end up going to the fair and buying half of them back.

See you at the fair!

 

 

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