perhaps it was the nonchalant beginning of my new vocational turn that has deterred me from writing about it here. i did not nail any sort of interview or quake at the sound of god’s summoning. there was no light bulb hovering over my head.

there were late-january margaritas (plural) at las delicias. there was the company of my husband and my children and my friend and neighbor, susan. and then, out of some space in susan’s consciousness reserved for the purely hypothetical, there was the suggestion that she and i open a fabric store. twenty minutes later, there was an impromptu tour of a not-so-hypothetical-at-all space that was for rent at 688 south cox.

was this a serious suggestion, this fabric store idea? i really did not think it was. in fact, i forgot all about it long enough to get the kind of wonderful sleep that happens when my mind is mulling over… nothing! but slowly, over the next few days, i began to feel an unprecedented level of excitement.

i spent more and more time building up the contours of this hypothetical world, designed to celebrate a craft that generations of women have passed down to the next. susan seemed to be living into the idea too, as we exchanged visions of offering sewing classes, building community around an age-old pass time, and of course, selling fabulous fabric!

i don’t even know when the dream shifted to reality. it was sometime between when we started calling it “sew memphis,” and where we are now, spending each day at 688 south cox pricing over 100 bolts of fabric for our may 1st opening. perhaps it was mid-february when we had this picture taken:

you don’t have a photo shoot unless you are really opening a business, right?

last night i read this new york times essay, proud to be a mompreneur, by jill salzman. as i took in the debate about whether or not female business owners should hide or showcase their roles as mothers, i felt different than i usually do when i read about women in business. i am one of these people now!

and as i quickly scrolled through recent memory, it became clear that i have traded the so-called “professionalism” that some think comes with downplaying the motherhood role for a more integrated, transparent, vocational model.

my children help me paint and stock shelves.

we have a playroom in the shop where the kids spend at least half of their days. i have definitely not, as salzman writes, “rejected the mom label.” i also worry about things that more “professional” women probably don’t worry about, such as the sand that my children transport from the school playground to the shop by way of their shoes, and the toys that must be put away before we leave the shop each day. being a mompreneur is gritty. literally.

but i have to believe salzman when she writes,

a parent who can manage the juggling and the balancing that is both running a company and raising a family is someone who can handle anything.

and i also have to believe that even though this adventure has unfolded with margaritas instead of light bulbs and introspection instead of interviews, it is the right thing for me to do. it comes from a place of deep gladness, as frederick buechner writes. and much of this gladness comes from sharing this creative chaos with my children.

one a weekday morning in 2005, university of pennsylvania psychology professor martin seligman was fortuitously double booked. his contribution to the positive psychology movement had caught the attention of dominic randolph, headmaster of one of new york city’s most prestigious private schools. it had also attracted the company of a pioneer on the other side of the educational spectrum: david levin, co-founder of KIPP charter schools, which exist to “prepare students in underserved communities for college and life” (KIPP website).

seligman combined the meetings. and just for fun, he invited his colleague christopher peterson. the two had just finished co-writing character strengths and virtues: a handbook and classification. the discussion between the four men was an explosion of creativity. randolph and levin found exactly what they didn’t know they were looking for: a breakdown of character strengths thought to produce happiness and success in a variety of cultures.

they found themselves wrestling with questions that have long confounded not just educators but anyone trying to nurture a thriving child or simply live a good life. what is good character? …which qualities matter most for a child who is trying to negotiate his way to a successful and autonomous adulthood? and are the answers to those questions the same in harlem and in riverdale (what if the secret to success is failure, paul tough, nytimes)?

the four worked together in the months that followed to develop a list of character strengths that proved to be even more related to report card grades than students’ IQs. levin points out that the list is not

a finger-wagging guilt trip about good values and appropriate behavior but [rather] a recipe for a successful and happy life (tough, NY times).

so randolph and levin, and those in their increasing realms of influence, began identifying, assessing, and inculcating the following character strengths in their students:

zest

grit

self-control

social intelligence

gratitude

optimism

curiosity

students at levin’s KIPP schools now receive character and academic report cards. newly developed assessment scales for qualities such as grit are routinely used to quantify and improve character markers of success. KIPP students are graduating from college at an increasing rate.

at randolph’s school, the emphasis on character is more subtle. he explains,

i don’t want to come up with a metric around character that could be gamed. i would hate it if that’s where we ended up (tough, NY times).

but it’s randolph’s take on character education that speaks most to me, an upper middle class parent, raising two upper middle class children, in an upper middle class environment that is all about minimizing kids’ suffering and maximizing their success.

faculty at randolph’s school relay that many of their students’ parents hold their children to high standards of performance while they protect their kids from the kinds of hardships that lead to grit, self-control, gratitude, etc. (tough, NY times). sheltered students are deprived of the kind of learning that happens through risk and failure. tough writes,

it is a central paradox of contemporary parenting… we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. and yet we all know — on some level, at least — that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can.

i’m not sure what this philosophy will look like as i try to put the proper amount of scaffolding in place around my monkey and bird, who are at once rambunctious and sensitive, privileged, and not immune to life’s limits. but perhaps my less-than-perfect parenting will prepare my kids for their less-than-perfect bosses, their less-than-perfect partners, their less-than-perfect surroundings, and their not-yet-realized dreams. what characteristics lead to a successful and happy life? if the answer to this question is the same in harlem and in riverdale, maybe it is the same for my children as it is for me.

if the monkey were to plan a wedding, he would follow the lead of julia roberts in steel magnolias. in other words, “pink is his signature color.”

as the mom of this pink-loving fellow, i have enjoyed MANY a self-administered pats on the back for allowing the monkey to exist outside of society’s color rules for boys and girls. you should see me at the cupcake counter, for example, proudly presenting both boys with their requested pink “plain janes.” i love myself in those moments.

but last week while we in asheville, the pink craze got a little more complicated when i took the monkey to pick out this season’s “creek walking shoes.” from a lovely, multicolored bouquet of keen sandals, the monkey plucked these with great zeal:

he was as pleased as punch (pun intended). i, on the other hand, was faced with an unexpected choice. is it my job to protect my children from teasing, or is it my job to help them be their truest selves? i hated myself in that moment.

i texted andy the above picture along with the words, “HELP! what should i do?”

his sentiments were the same as my own. we both want to protect our children from teasing AND help them be their truest selves. meanwhile, the monkey commenced to skip around the store in the fabulous pink shoes.

i contemplated my next move and imagined the silent horror of the sweetly-smiling sales woman, observing my attempts to squelch my son’s spirit. should i explain to my four-year-old that kids are mean, and that in our more traditional town, kids are mean AND traditional? or should i just purchase the pink shoes and hope for the best?

i opted for plan C. we revisited the multicolored bouquet of keen sandals “just to check for any other colors we might like.” and lo and behold, there was another pair on the display that was calling the monkey’s name. the dark pink pair:

now this pair is much more pink in person than the above picture reveals, but i didn’t care. surely he could be his true self in these shoes AND avoid teasing. we bought the shoes, and i was off the hook.

but only temporarily. i’m convinced that time and again, i will be revisiting the questions i asked myself in the shoe store. ultimately, i believe that it’s healthy to be selective about when, where, and with whom we reveal the deepest parts of who we are. i want to teach my kids to be selective. unfortunately, nobody learns to be selective without being teased.

i’m not sure i did the right thing. i am not writing to defend my choice. i’m just saying that in parenting, everything is complicated. nothing is as simple as wanting my kids to feel the cool mountain stream washing over their hot summer feet.

 

elizabeth agonized over her decision to return to full-time work in 2010 as a certified financial planner. she feared that her children would not transition well to aftercare, and she was right. seven-year-old A confessed that she “has never felt so lonely in her entire life.” W, age-five, regressed and started wetting his pants at school every day. “we were all grief-stricken,” elizabeth laments.

in her book perfect madness, judith warner describes the silences that fell in her interview groups with mothers because,

“there are things that are sayable and unsayable about motherhood today. it is permissible, for example, to talk a lot about guilt, but not a lot about ambition.” there is an underlying assumption that we “cannot really challenge the american culture of rugged individualism… we lack the most basic notions now of what a different kind of culture might look or feel like” (31-32).

elizabeth broke the silence and confided both her guilt and her ambition to her dear friend angela, a teacher by trade, who was working part-time in addition to the full-time responsibilities of raising her two nine-year-old boys. together, the two hatched a plan that does challenge the american culture of rugged individualism. elizabeth withdrew A and W from aftercare, and angela quit her part-time job to integrate A and W into her family’s weekday life.  

 elizabeth admits that she did not put much stock in the initial chatter about such an arrangement. “how would this mother of two be able to go to three different schools every afternoon, much less herd this group of four children?” she questioned. “i knew i could never do it myself.”

but in december, angela made it clear that she was serious about the idea of caring for A and W. she approached elizabeth with a proposal, and the two talked candidly about fair compensation, day-to-day details, and looming fears. 

“i will always remember sitting in [angela’s] kitchen making this agreement, and the enormous feeling of relief that washed over me,” says elizabeth. “i started to cry; i was so grateful. when angela responded that ‘we are helping each other,’ that really resonated with me. we’ve been helping each other ever since.”

angela describes the process as an easy decision, informed, in part, by her own experience of returning to full-time work when her boys were five years old. “it was tough on them. they would cry and pitch fits whenever they had to go to aftercare. elizabeth’s situation struck a familiar chord,” she explains. “her family was in need, and i was in a position that allowed me to help her. i am very comfortable looking after children!”

on a typical day, angela fetches A from school at 2:45, drives eight to twelve minutes to pick up her boys, S and L from school, and finally makes her way to a third school to pick up W. once her honda accord is packed to the gills, the entourage returns to elizabeth’s house, and the older kids finish their homework. angela uses this time to practice numbers, letters, sounds with W. she even unloads the dishes if they’re clean! all of the children have after-school activities that vary throughout the year. A currently plays soccer soccer on wednesdays and S has basketball on mondays and wednesdays. for a change of scenery, the group gathers at angela’s house on friday afternoons, snow days, holidays, and other vacation days during the school year.

“the kids get along pretty well,” angela muses. “they are like typical brothers and sister. not every day is perfect, but it’s always an adventure! A and L play very well together. W really looks up to S, and S takes being a big-brother-type seriously. he is always talking about W, and he even taught him how to shoot a basketball and jump rope.”

both angela and elizabeth credit the the success  of their arrangement to continued flexibility and open conversation. they have tweaked the details of their partnership as needed. angela recommends this kind of innovation only in cases where “both moms communicate openly and go with the flow. nothing is ever the same twice with this many kids in the mix. everyone is growing and evolving, and i think it’s important to keep this in mind.”

both moms describe the entire collaboration as a MakeShift moment. from impromptu rainy day walks that combat cabin fever, to the occasional depositing of children at elizabeth’s office, the little crew of six is making it all up as they go. 

on collaberative mothering, perhaps elizabeth says it best:

whenever i watch a show on lions or elephants or primates, i get sad.  i see how other creatures nurture their young together. other creatures have not forgotten that it takes a village, a pride, a pod or a pack, to raise young. yet in our “modern” society, we have alienated mothers from each other, and mothering has become quite an isolating experience. having this relationship with angela makes me feel like we, as mothers, are helping each other, the way god intended.  it is such a blessing to me.

my post today is an essay i wrote for a fabulous blog project called “a liberated life.” vanessa and sarah solicit and post essays wherein women of every age and stage chronicle their joys and concerns along the path toward liberation.

here’s an excerpt, but you’ll have to scurry over to “a liberated life” to read the rest:

Liberation, as it turns out, is not as simple as a dream job or a grad school diploma, or a positive pregnancy test, or a happy home. In fact, I cannot even begin to envision what a liberated life might look like for today’s mothers, whose souls brim with enough passion and opportunity to fill a warehouse full of moon bounces and inflatable slides. There is an anxiety that comes with motherhood that has far outgrown the widespread dreams for balance and the tired juggling metaphors. Scientists study it, and talk show hosts allude to it, but this anxiety, for the most part, remains undefined.

how would YOU define a liberated life?

when andy and i were pining away for children (in between jumbo margaritas at el porton or after the seventh consecutive episode of 24), we looked forward to things like playing outside with them, showing them our favorite mountains, and generally introducing them to all that is enjoyable and beautiful. even then, i knew that disciplining children would be my weakness. i looked upon the prospect of setting rules and enforcing time-outs as a dreadful necessity. and now that i am four years into parenthood, i would like to congratulate my twenty-something self for her accurate foresight. setting rules and enforcing time-outs is, in fact, a dreadful necessity.

the child experts say that children thrive under the presence of two equally present conditions: high nurture and high structure. the former is something that comes easily to me, and especially to andy. we try to mirror and help the kids name their feelings. we plan ahead for shared experiences that are enjoyable and beautiful. but when it comes to the latter, there is much less planning ahead. though the kids rely on a pretty steady routine and schedule, the discipline piece is often spur of the moment (and ineffective). in the grand game of parenting, i make up the rules as i go and announce them to the younger players, who return my half-hearted efforts with half-hearted compliance.

enter the wii.

after the second week of house arrest due to sub-arctic temperatures, andy and the kids braved the icy roads and returned home with a wii. it was fun for a while. there were family bowling tournaments and ridiculous collective attempts at nailing m.c. hammer’s dance moves. and then, without warning, the monkey stumbled into a deep, black, techy hole, and nobody has heard from his former self since. as recently as last week, he could be heard uttering heartbreaking phrases such as,

 “i don’t want to play outside in the warm sunshine. i want to play wii.” 

the wiihas brought the need for discipline and limit-setting in our home to a level that is far beyond the reaches of spur-of-moment-rule-making. so in a reluctant act of planning and plotting, andy and i discussed and created this chart to regulate wii time and create incentives for the monkey to act like a civilized human being.

though this is not the hand-held chart that the tech-crazed monkey requested, (he wanted one “like a smart phone”), it is actually becoming the key to pleasant life around here. the monkey earns stickers for being sweet and cooperative, and each sticker translates into ten minutes of wii time. he can earn up to an hour per day, and a strategically-placed timer above the wii lets him know when his time is up. i am utterly shocked that the monkey loves this new system. he loves rules. he loves structure. he now gets himself dressed, takes bottles to the recycling bin, makes his own breakfast, and quits playing the wii when asked, all for precious stickers and minutes spent clutching the white plastic control.

it turns out that my twenty-something self was only half right.  setting rules and enforcing time-outs is, in fact, a dreadful necessity. but the absence of structure and discipline is fifty times more dreadful. rules simply make life easier. and we can’t have all that is enjoyable and beautiful without them.

about a year ago, the MakeShift revolution was born of equal parts anxiety and creativity. anxiety and creativity are a likely pairing in most cases of  forward progress, no  matter how big or small. anxiety about the way things are leads to the creative resolve to make things new.

but on the subject of anxiety, perfect madness author judith warner suggests that many mothers are unwilling to be honest with ourselves and others about the sources of this natural maternal emotion:

“basically, it is acceptable to air all your dirty laundry about yourself, your husband, or your children but it is not acceptable to look beyond your family to suggest that there is something wrong with the world. it is not permissible to talk about policy, or economics, or culture… and this is because, i think, policy, economics, and culture are perceived as being things that we have no control over…. and so we fixate on those things we feel we can control — how our child holds a pencil, whether or not she eats gluten — rather than worry about what we can’t control: our economic futures, kids’ education, health care costs, whether or not we’ll ever be able to afford to retire….

the perversity in all this, of course, is that what we’re trying to control is precisely what one cannot control; you can’t shape and perfect human beings, pre-program and prepare them along the way. but you can — ostensibly — exert some control over what kind of society you live in…. you ostensibly have the power, en masse, to set the national agenda” (209). 

i am often guilty of shying away from “setting the national agenda” in favor of setting our family agenda. but today’s post is a venture into a space where the personal and political are intertwined: the issue of educating the children of memphis and shelby county. below is an interview with gretchen stroud, a representative of friends united for school equality (FUSE). FUSE is a group of parents and grassroots activists in favor of the proposed merger of local city and county school systems. read below for a beautiful example of how the collective forces of parental anxiety and creativity are moving beyond the home and into the broken world.  

+     +     +     +     +

mary allison: please introduce yourself and let readers know why are you in favor of the consolidation of shelby county and memphis city schools.

gretchen: I am the parent of an Memphis City Schools (MCS) student in first grade. We have had a wonderful experience with MCS so far and are very happy with his school. However, I support consolidation for a few key reasons:

1. If Shelby County Schools (SCS) were to obtain the special school district status (with taxing authority) pursued by its school board president David Pickler, this would cut funding for MCS and do away with the equitable per student funding that currently comes from Shelby County. In this scenario, Memphis would be responsible for educating approximately 70% of the county’s children with only 40% of the tax revenues. Taxes in Memphis would have to rise substantially to make up the difference.
2. Although the money issue is concerning, the major reason I support the consolidation is that you cannot have “separate but equal” school systems, by law. We are creating a widening division between those students who come from middle and upper class families and those at the lowest end of the economic spectrum. This is immoral, unethical and will ultimately create great harm to Memphis and all the surrounding towns and cities who depend on Memphis as the anchor for our mid-south cultural and economic sustainability. Every single child has the potential to learn, and I can tell you from watching the children in my son’s school that every one of them wants to learn. It is up to the adults to figure out how to do that fairly and equally for all.

mary allison: what is FUSE?

gretchen: FUSE stands for Friends United for School Equality. We are a group of Shelby County residents (which means, of course, those living in Memphis and in the suburbs – we are ALL Shelby County) who believe that for our county to remain viable and competitive in the 21st century we must work together as one to provide quality education to ALL of the children in Shelby County.

mary allison: how did FUSE start? please describe how the idea emerged and how so many mid-south parents became organized and mobilized so quickly under the umbrella of FUSE:

gretchen: Well, it started as a group of MCS Optional School parents who came together on Facebook after Mr. Pickler started trying to scare people by threatening the Optional program. I think that he was hoping that our fear of losing this program would drive us to vote against the merger. However, he definitely underestimated us. We came together to start talking about consolidation and quickly realized that this isn’t just about our kids, it is about ALL of the kids in Shelby County. Every single one of them deserves a great education – not just the ones we are raising. And we talked about how we wanted to reach out to other parents from the county schools because we felt that there were more people like us out there who are committed to the concept that you cannot raise your children in a bubble of privilege. What is good for my child should be good for ALL children, and if it isn’t good for all children then it really isn’t good for my own child in the long run either. I think we have grown so quickly because our group is devoted to fostering kind, honest, and real conversation among parents and other “regular people.”

mary allison: what are some of the reasons that fuel opposition to school consolidation, and what do you to say to parents who are not in favor of merging?

gretchen: Fear and lack of truth. Honestly, people think that MCS are pits of danger and despair. I partly blame the media because they will run a hundred stories about teen pregnancy, a fight at a school, and an underperforming principal. But, I didn’t see a single mid-south news organization cover the news this summer when Memphis was named one of the 21 “overachieving” urban school districts based on a large study of urban school districts in the US. Not just one of the 21, but one of the top five! That is great news for Memphis, and NO ONE reported it. The report can be found in this Education Week article. 

We had a group of Germantown moms send us a list of questions that they honestly wanted to ask (but were a little embarrassed and afraid to, I think). They wanted to know if our elementary kids in MCS have art or music or libraries. I was blown away! But, the sad fact is that the myths and stereotypes people have been hearing about MCS for years are in many cases their only exposure to the city school system. We were able to answer those questions in a non-threatening manner that encouraged further dialog. And, in case your readers are wondering, yes, MCS elementary students have art, Orff music, P.E., and library every week. And most elementary schools also offer foreign languages starting in first grade. In addition, the gifted program in MCS begins in kindergarten. They start instruments in fourth grade too.

What I say to parents who oppose the merger is, come and see what MCS is really about. Our kids are great kids who want to learn, just like yours do. We have wonderful, hard-working teachers, just like you do. Great things happen in Memphis City Schools every single day. Beyond that, I would say consolidation is the RIGHT thing to do. Shelby County cannot survive with this crazy  us vs. them mentality. And, you aren’t creating the kind of place where your children will want to live when they grow up if the city that is the keystone of this entire mid-south area is left to decay and decline because we cannot come together as one community.

mary allison: what actions do members of FUSE take to affect change?

gretchen: We have some really great members! We write letters to the newspapers, and we are working with Stand for Children to host educational events for the community about the pros and cons of consolidation (although I should note that FUSE supports the consolidation and Stand is non-partisan on this issue). We had a very active email campaign to city council last week ahead of their vote. We contact our state legislature and the governor to try to give Memphis a voice in this process. We educate others about what consolidation could look like. We reach out to parents across the county to start the conversation now about what we parents want a unified school district to offer. Do we want smaller sub-districts? Do we want magnet schools? Do we want smaller class sizes? Do we want every child to get foreign language instruction starting in first grade? What do we think our children need to be competitive in the 21st century? I’m not saying that I have a position on all of these issues, but so far no one is asking parents what WE want in a new, unified district. And they should be asking.

mary allison: could you describe in layman’s terms the timeline and political process that is currently structuring the consolidation decision?

gretchen: Ha, ha, ha!  If I could do that, I’d be rich!  As of this moment, the city council has accepted the charter surrender, but Memphians STILL need to vote in the referendum (early voting begins Feb. 16). Shelby County Schools has filed a federal lawsuit against a whole lot of people, including (but not limited to) MCS, Memphis City Council, US Dept of Education, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, US Dept of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder, Tennessee Department of Education, Education Commissioner Patrick Smith (and others). And, that is just the beginning.

But, and this is important, it is time NOW for all of us in Shelby County to seriously contemplate whether we want this issue tied up in federal courts for the next five to ten years. Who does that serve? Certainly not the children. It really just serves our fear and our prejudices. And, if we want to come together and try to figure out the best way to educate all of the children in this community in the best way possible, then we need to tell our elected officials that we want to come together and fix this now.

mary allison: how might others who are interested in FUSE become involved in your work?

gretchen: First, let me say that we would love to have anyone join us who is interested.  You can find us at www.fuseshelby.org or on Facebook.

[source info for perfect madness is located on the bibliography page, which is listed on the sidebar to your right.]

until six weeks ago, the monkey was a strict observer of naptime. to say that he was an “observer” of nap time is to say that he spent two hours per day holed up in his room. sometimes he slept, but most of the time he invented games for himself to play within his four walls.

for example, it was not uncommon for me to open his door after naptime to find a “puzzle piece room,” a carefully created state of affairs wherein the entire floor was covered in adjacent blankets, er, i mean “puzzle pieces.” other days were “sorting days,” and the monkey would spend the two hours organizing and cataloging his stuffed animals, game pieces, markers, and books. still other afternoons were spent “reading.” once, i walked in on this scene:

but times are different now. i gave in to the monkey’s complaints that he was bored in his room, and now, while his brother sleeps, he does things that require much less imagination (many of which involve the television and/or the wii). perhaps this is because i have not made the shift away from cooking dinner, folding laundry, and catching up on work between the hours of two o’clock and four o’clock. or perhaps it is because the monkey and i are both drawn to what is easier. for him, making a puzzle piece room takes more effort than wii bowling. and for me, extracting him from the tv takes more effort than cooking dinner in peace.

the problem with this scenario is that i don’t want to deprive the monkey of the gift of boredom. catherine newman, author of an essay entitled bored again, which appeared in the fall 2010 issue of brainchild magazine, defines boredom as “that agitated space between relaxation and action: dialed down, it can become a pleasant kind of inertia or a meditative stillness, where it feels good to sit quietly with your own thoughts; cranked up a notch, it can produce creative release.” newman goes on to write,

“i’m not trying to sound like one of those crafty-mama blogs that makes you want to kill yourself, the kind you bookmark one day because you think that putting out a wooden bowl of felt gnomes sounds like a good idea… and yet. you do have to learn boredom, learn to live with it, to manage it with the power of your own mind, without recourse to video games or bungee jumping or sniffing glue or starting a nuclear war or date raping your roommate’s girlfriend. the most dangerous people we know are the least able to sit still, to be inside an absence of motion.”

i definitely don’t want the monkey to become “a dangerous person,” but that’s not my main attraction to boredom. i simply think that boredom facilitates creativity and imagination, and these things are what ultimately make life beautiful.

our family spends significant periods of time away from our memphis routines and addictions to technology. our family camp weekends and julys in the north carolina mountains are hopefully deterrents from future glue-sniffing tendencies. but building boredom into our daily memphis routine, one that must also include my own significant accomplishments on the home and work fronts, is becoming increasingly difficult.

is there any way to give the monkey the gift of boredom (and creativity and imagination and beauty) without forcing him to play with a wooden bowl of felt gnomes?

here’s a little ditty i wrote about vaccines to the tune of jolene, by dolly parton:

vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,

i’m begging of you please don’t hurt my bird.

vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,

it’s hard to sift through everything i’ve heard.

          your protection is beyond compare

          shielding us from rubella’s snare

          all for little more than an infant’s scream.

some say you make kids autism prone

when you mix with testosterone

are your effects really this extreme, vaccines?

          they fight about you in the news

          but the parents are the ones who lose

          your truth is so evasive, damn vaccines.

so once a month we have “shot day”

according to a schedule that is delayed

tripling our trips to the doc for mean vaccines.

          vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, vaccines

          i’m begging of you please don’t hurt my bird.

          vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,

          it’s hard to sift through everything i’ve heard.

no parents’ day out or church nursery

for a kid without immunity

you can’t fully join society without vaccines.

          i had to have this talk with you

          since last week i gave in to you

          we faced the dreaded MMR, vaccine

vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,

i’m begging of you please don’t hurt my bird.

vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,

it’s hard to sift through everything i’ve heard.

a few days before christmas, after the convenience of holing up in our warm house had given away to large inconvenient messes in every room, i took the boys to a movie. this was the monkey’s second trip to the movies. the first one occurred when he was 18 months old, and he made it until the popcorn ran out. i was hoping that the bird would be similarly enthralled with the popcorn on his first trip to the picture show.

no such luck.

while the monkey sat gawking in a trance that only the likes of disney can induce, the bird walked up and down the steps, touched every sticky surface, ate popcorn fromthe floor, rolled around on the grungy carpet, and pretty much wrecked this self-professed germaphobe. after about 30 minutes of this, i broke the news to the monkey that it was time to go home. in my most sympathetic tone, i explained that i would bring him back within the next few days to see the whole movie, and that we would find a sitter for the bird.

this did not fly.

the monkey cried earnest tears of disappointment while i excused myself once again to fetch the bird from his newly developed plot to touch the movie screen. when i returned, the young mom who was sitting behind us with three enthralled (and slightly older) children of her own said,

“it’s okay. let him stay. i’ll watch him.”

so, for the next hour, i roamed around the theatre with the bird. the monkey sat snugly in his seat, and i became an expert at locating the top of his curly little head from every possible vantage point.

a few days later, on new year’s eve, i found myself at the (very crowded) fresh market with both kids in tow. we were standing in the never ending checkout line when the boys tired of their giant lollipops. the monkey demanded a lemonade sample, and the bird, who has clearly had too much exposure to anna dewdney’s llama llama mad at mama, began tossing things out of the cart.

once again, we were helped by a stranger, this time an elderly great-grandmother-type, who distracted the boys while i walked eight feet away to procure lemonade samples. she said,

“i have two boys too. they’re all grown up now, but i will never forget what it was like when they were little!”

i believe that it truly takes a village to raise a child. but villages cannot be very broadly defined these days. there are kidnappings and child molesters and people who follow you all over town by foot and by car (this has actually happened to my children and me). parents have to select their villages carefully. there are some strangers whose offers to help i have turned down.

but my intuition over the holidays at the movies and at the grocery store was telling me two things: “these folks are okay,” and “stay close by.” i went with it.

trusting something so subjective is scary. but sometimes, this intuition is all we’ve got.