saturday, as i sat in a sewing class channeling all three braincells left in my head toward learning how to use the serger my mom gave me for christmas, the teacher looked at me, shook her head, and said,

“mary allison, why do you have to be so different?”

she was right. the supplies i had purchased were different from everyone else’s. they were passable but different, and my serger came with it’s own unique requirements for threading. these were the differences to which she was referring. but as i answered, i had a whole host of other experiences in mind.

“i’ve been asking myself the same question for my whole life!” i retorted.

of course i know that in the grand scheme of things, i am not so unique. i know a gal who divides her time between climbing rocks in alaska and farming cotton in alabama. i am just a gal who divides my time between mothering, ministering, and co-owning a fabric shop. i am also probably just like everyone else in the world who is struck, every once in a while, by the overwhelming sense that i am an oddball.

but these days, in the context of church, these moments of self-oddball-realization are no longer an occasional thing for me. i have grown to anticipate and guard against inevitable comments about my clothes (yellow jeans! oh my!) and my hair (an unnatural red). but these remarks only hurt me because they are layered on top of the mean things i tell myself about why i no longer fit in in church. i am a bad person because i don’t believe what everyone else believes. on top of that, i am an ungrateful person because i don’t think that church should exist to glorify the church. clearly, i have not become the person those loving church people had in mind when they were contributing to my upbringing. i am so, disappointingly different.

last summer, my friend erin lane asked me to write an essay for an upcoming book entitled talking taboo: american christian women get frank about faith. i was to write about some aspect of my faith and experience of church that seems too shameful or too risky to admit. i quickly said yes because almost every thought in my head about faith and church feels taboo. finally, i had landed in a field in which i am a true expert! i submitted several topics for consideration, all of which positioned me to speak as a christian woman. each time, erin wrote back and asserted that she wanted me to speak as a christian woman leader… a minister.

i tried this. i tried drawing from the experiences i have had in ministry that i imagine closely resemble the vocations of my more normal, less disruptive colleagues. but this felt so inauthentic that i wrote erin and told her that i didn’t think i could contribute to the project. she left the window open for me to participate, and i told myself that if i woke up one morning with an essay idea that would allow me to speak from a place of sincerity and fulfill erin’s requests, i would give it another shot.

as it happened, i did wake up one morning, several weeks after the deadline, with an urgent impulse to write. i cranked out an entire essay in a couple of hours, turned it in, and marveled for weeks to follow about how wonderful it was to feel so at home while doing something ministry-related. i was able to cherish this feeling for a couple of months before my fears set in. in the months and weeks and days before the book was to go to the publisher, i agonized over whether to withdraw my piece from the project. i was afraid then, and i remain afraid, that the level of truth-telling that shapes my essay will translate into a solid and obvious agreement among all parties involved that there is, indeed, no place for me in the faith community of loving people who raised me. everyone will know what i have known for years: i am a bad person because i don’t believe what everyone else believes. on top of that, i am an ungrateful person because i don’t think that church should exist to glorify the church. i am so, disappointingly different.

the book is set to come out in october. my face and unnaturally red hair are on the cover. and inside, my essay is entitled, “my secret buddhist life.”

there is an indigogo campaign going on now to raise money to host conferences and virtual opportunities for women all over the country to
“talk taboo” with one another. perhaps the chance to talk about the ways in which religion has shaped our shameful inner monologues will result in wonderful, at-home feelings like those i had in the few months after i turned in my essay. if this is something you’d like to help promote, please visit the link above.

meanwhile, if anyone knows of an ashram in india that’s got an opening in late october for a woman wearing yellow jeans, please let me know!

 

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.

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.

my new friend caroline recently shared with me that many of her women role models don’t seem to balance love and work as much as they appear to be merely surviving love and work. implied in this statement is the notion that mothers are in a constant state of reaction to life’s curve balls: forgotten lunches, toddler illnesses, workplace dramas, heaps of laundry, et cetera. the holy grail (which i often mistake for a wine glass or champagne cocktail) then becomes that rare stillness that gives rise to intentionality. it’s the chance to act, and not react. it’s about making wise choices about those few moving parts in our lives that we can actually control.

for me, it’s difficult to imagine what a life of balance could look like when mere survival seems to be the most prevalent motherhood mode. but in the words of carolyn g. heilbrun, “what matters is that lives do not serve as models; only stories do that.” essentially, even as most of us are caught up in the business of reaction and survival, we have moments when our thinking shifts, when we trust our instincts, make counter-cultural choices, take charge, and replace conventions and expectations with trail-blazing honesty. even those of us who live lives of survival have a story or two to tell about a moment of balance. and in the words of my new friend caroline, “stories take us beyond abstract theory and into the world of the living and integrating.”

there are tales of a new way lurking in every person’s history; there is potential of trail-blazing honesty in every encounter. the key is to extract these stories from others and to share our own. when we do this we are collectively constructing a new narrative — one that has the power to draw us out of survival mode, even if it’s just for one moment at a time.

[source for this post is located on the bibliography page found on the sidebar to your right.]

last night, the kids played with a babysitter while andy and i went to dinner and a movie. i don’t think that i am merely assuaging my mommy guilt when i say that a good babysitter (and we’re grateful to have several) has the capacity to be “more than i am and everything that i am not,” to borrow words from life’s work by lisa belkin (67). these sitters usually make their entrances during the six p.m. hour, when all of my energy has been sucked up by the day’s celebrations and endless negotiations (kids are little lawyers, aren’t they?). these gals aren’t trying to work from home or fold a week’s worth of laundry.they don’t utter phrases such as, “i’m too tired to play football with you right now.” and perhaps they even possess the resolve and distracting power to enforce rules that i have been known to abandon in my weakest parenting moments.

if all goes well, andy and i return home to two sleeping angels and the sitter’s report that the evening at our house was pure magic. we get a rundown of our children’s antics, most of which are endearing and cause our favorite teenage girls to utter phrases such as, “i love your children.”

there is no better music to my ears… or so i THOUGHT.

last night’s date came after what was, for me, a very challenging week of parenting. the bird pitched screaming fits EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. i changed his diaper, put him in the car seat, and got him dressed. he hit me in the face, kicked me in the gut, and woke up each new day ready for another round (even after an evening when the screaming fits extended past midnight). if it were not for my memories of the monkey (who is now delightful to be around most of the time) acting similarly when he was this age, i would have collapsed into a crying heap somewhere around wednesday.

and so, last night when andy and i returned home to the sitter, i braced myself for what i knew would not be her usual sunny report. she described the evening in detail, which included the bird’s recent fit-pitching trends combined with the fact that the monkey could not find his “it” animal required for peaceful sleep. food was thrown. bath time was pure misery. our dog even added to the cacophony by nipping at her ankles.

i thought it would feel horrible to hear someone, who loves my children, regretfully relay the events of such a trying evening. i was wrong. when the words, “i am so exhausted… i don’t see how you do this day in and day out… how do you wade through this chaos?” came out of this poor girl’s mouth, i wanted to kiss her.

if a sophomore in high school, who is half my age and with three times my energy, finds my existence to be somewhat difficult, perhaps i am not going crazy after all. or, maybe more accurately, my insanity is warranted. god, i love empathy.

i just hope we can persuade this poor sitter to come back!

about halfasecond after andy and i got married, people started asking us when we were going to have children. poor little nosy souls… they were forced to wait for six whole years for us to fit quaintly into their definition of family. there was a lightness about those years (probably the sheer absence of diaper bags and clinging children) but people sort of regarded us lightly too. i didn’t notice this, of course, until my life became full of baby love, it’s accompanying luggage, and the sudden respect i received just for having a small human being in my charge. seemingly overnight, members of our community began respecting our decisions to bow out early from a parties, to let the answering machine field our calls, and to decline “invitations” to chaperon church lock-ins. this regard for our boundaries has been a lovely, unexpected parenting perk.

for me, six years was long enough to be married without children; it felt too long, in fact. but what about those who simply choose not to become parents? my friends who have opted out of the parenting thing report that they feel left out, at best, and badgered and disrespected, at worst. 

elizabeth gilbert has recently brought this phenomenon to light in her book committed. she writes of the questions and judgements imposed upon her and others who have chosen not to have children. but she also points out that our society is actually better for having “aunties” and “(s)parents.” she writes,

“Even within my own community, I can see where I have been vital sometimes as a member of the Auntie Brigade. My job is not merely to spoil and indulge my niece and nephew (though I do take that assignment to heart) but also to be a roving auntie to the world — an ambassador auntie —who is on hand wherever help is needed, in anybody’s family whatsoever. There are people I’ve been able to help, sometimes fully supporting them for years, because I am not obliged, as a mother would be obliged, to put all my energies and resources into the full-time rearing of a child. There are a whole bunch of Little League uniforms and orthodontist’s bills and college educations that I will never have to pay for, thereby freeing up resources to spread more widely across the community. In this way, I, too, foster life. There are many, many ways to foster life. And believe me, every single one of them is essential.”

my children have several “aunties” and “(s)parents” in their lives. the glee with which the monkey and bird approach our friends, ruth, martha, hope, sarah, and phil (just to name a few) is second only to the relief i feel when someone with renewed energy and delight in toddler antics enters my front door. i hear these “aunties” and “(s)parents laugh at my kids’ jokes. i watch them join my children for an afternoon of porch swinging and story telling. i see them get down on the floor and immerse themselves in legoland and the enterprise of space-ship-building. and then, when these friends leave, i am able to see my children more for the funny little wonders that they are and less for the little tornadic wind storms that they can be.

so to all of the “aunties” and “(s)parents” of the world, i say THANK YOU. i respect your place in life, and i am thankful for it. there really are “many ways to foster life.” and to those who foster life here at our house, i am so, so grateful.

[the elizabeth gilbert quote is from https://www.babble.com/elizabeth-gilbert-committed-marriage/.]

most people mistakenly think that because i am a minister and a mother, i must have some special, handed-down-from-god, ability to explain matters of the ultimate to children. i’ll never forget walking with the monkey into his school last december. the preschool director had proudly installed a life-sized nativity scene:

she greeted us with a smile and a wink and said, “monkey, i know that YOU of all people must know who all of these characters are!”

she quizzed him on everyone from the animals, to mary and joseph, to jesus, himself. i am here to tell you that apart from the slight recognition of a sheep, my little guy had no earthly idea what the director was talking about.

“we’ll work on this,” i said.

yesterday, i had another opportunity to display my deficits in the area of early childhood religious education when i did the children’s sermon at church. i learned later from the monkey that my explanation of the word “perseverance” had not been clear (as found in the hebrews text, “let us run with perseverance the race set before us”). the monkey informed me confidently, as he was attempting to dismount his new trampoline, that i had nothing to worry about. he was “not going to have perseverance.” when i flashed a puzzled look he said, “that means that i am not going to get too tired or fall down.” hmmn…

finally, the monkey and i had the following interaction before bedtime last night. i was singing, and he was to fill in the gaps in the song with rhyming phrases:

mommy: (singing) “the ants go marching 12 by 12 hurrah, hurrah; the ants go marching 12 by 12, the little one stops to…”

monkey: “…go to hell!”

mommy: “what? what is hell?”

monkey: “it’s just a place you go.”

mommy: (dumbfounded) “well, where in the world have you heard of this place?”

monkey: “all the time, mommy. you know… when i go up a hill…”

mommy: “so you are saying HILL?”

monkey: “yes!”

mommy: “oh, thank god.”

so, to all the moms out there who know how to talk to children about divnity and mystery, i have a proposition to make. you give my children a foundation of stories — a framework upon which they might hang their questions later. you give them an overwhelming sense that god is love, and you inspire them to give love in return.

then, when your children get to college, you can send them to me. i will happily return to my old college chaplaincy roots. we’ll talk about our questions, our doubts, and the notion that there’s wisdom in recognizing the vast expanse of what we don’t know. we’ll work on integrating head and heart, thinking and being. 

i hope this plan works for you because if it doesn’t, my children are clearly going to hill in a hand basket.

i returned last night from the young clergy women’s conference, the topic of which was “leading as ourselves.” as i sat in the sub-artic environs of our candler divinity school classroom and looked around at my fellow girl preachers, i was struck by both awe and jealousy. many of these women work full time in the church or other para-church settings. some of them have children, some of them work part-time or half-time, but very few seemed to be on the piecemeal job plan as i am, stringing together a haphazard collection of part-time gigs with the trials and rewards of stay-at-home motherhood.

i learned later, of course, that i am not the only one holding my life and life’s work together with odd combinations of pipe cleaners, vestments, therapy, wine, and a steam mop. the room was full of those who long, as i did, to have children; those who struggle for balance of all kinds; those who are facing transitions; and those who are wrestling with issues of identity. 

i did not know all of this on day one, though, when one of our beloved speakers, melissa clodfelter, asked us what leadership-related topics we would like to cover in our time together. so, i raised my hand and explained that i am often trying to lead from the margins. because of my simultaneous frustration and delight with the church and my desire to spend the majority of my time with the monkey and the bird, i am never central to the church’s power structures. i often feel like an outsider, and i wonder if i can ever actually effectively lead from this position. though i felt as if i were speaking only for myself at the conference, i know that the world is full of women who feel marginalized in the workplace, whether for reasons of choice or unfair circumstance. what kind of leadership do we, the women on the fringes, have to offer?

i was relieved when melissa answered that the margins are the places from which true leadership emerges. it is only by stepping outside of the structures that rule our world that we gain the perspective needed to change things. fitting in is not a prerequisite for effective leadership, as evidenced by gandhi, martin luther king jr., and jesus christ, himself! in fact, affecting change requires an uncomfortable, liminal type of existance.

i am beginning to see that leadership, from my own personal margins might look like this:

• changing the world, by raising boys who are emotionally intelligent, compassionate, and justice-seeking. brown eyes over scrambled eggs, and all that…
• remaining on the fringes of church in order to speak from a place of perspective and insight.
• remaining connected to the church so that my perspective and insight will matter.
• writing here about what it’s like to try fashion a real, meaningful life that honors my own leanings as well as the legacies handed down to me by superwomen, fifties housewives, and everyone in between.

but mostly, i’m beginning to be thankful that i never quite fit in anywhere. in an odd sort of way, i am in good company. and there is meaning to be found in the margins and proclaimed to the world. thanks for joining me in this process — this little makeshift revolution.

my dad, a residential realtor by trade, has recently listed an antebellum home that was occupied by the same memphis family for 150 years. in response to my begging, he recently invited andy, the kids, and me to crash a happy hour gathering of architects at the site.

the archetects were like kids in a candy store, and joined me in shameless picture-taking and investigating every square inch of the home and its features, from these aqua curtain tiebacks (the product of the last re-model),

to the fourth story attic tower.

but what struck me the most about our tour of this magnificent home and the enchanted grounds around it were the conversations i overhead while we were walking around. “what would be the best use of this gem?” people asked each other. it could, once again, be a single family home, of course. or it could host a downstairs business and an upstairs residence.

or… (and these are the ideas that really inspired me) the home and grounds could be shared somehow. one architect’s idea was that two or three families could live in the home. there would be private residence space for each family and a few common area rooms. another thought was that a single family could live in the antebellum home, and several smaller homes could be built on the grounds. these “lots” would sell for modest prices, and the homes would occupy a small footprint and not diminish the manicured wildness of the tree-filled landscape. my imagination was off and running with dreams of sharing this place with family and friends, committed to raising our children in this expanse of nature located right in the heart of the city.

i have always been intrigued by groups of kinfolk and comrades who build a life together that strays from the “good fences make good neighbors” mantra of traditional american culture. when i was in divinity school, i became enamored with the bloomsbury group — virginia wolf, her husband and sister, and all of their various artist and writer friends who shared a home in england.

what attracted me then was the creativity and exchange of ideas fostered by this sort of life. but now that i am a parent, i am also attracted to the idea of shared responsibility and the notion that communities or villages might just do a better job of raising our children than we can do alone.

let’s face it: andy and i cannot really afford to move our family into antebellum bliss. but our brief time on the grounds has me thinking about making intentional connections with neighbors and constructing a life where responsibilities can be shared. this is not a new idea, of course, and folks in other countries have been living this way since the beginning of time.

in bad mother, ayelet waldmen writes of her mother’s committment to shared resonsibility:

“during the headiest era of my mother’s feminist phase, she even figured out a way to spare herself the bulk of the cooking; she and the other members of her consciousness-raising group formed a supper cooperative. each day a different one of them would cook for the group, separate the food into individual family-sized portions, and drop them off at the others’ houses” (54).

along those lines, i have friends who take turns going to each others’ houses to help each other with home projects. and jennifer, who was featured in one of my early “mothers of invention” posts, wrote about a makeshift cooperative pre-school that she and other mothers created for their children.

perhaps we don’t have to pick up and physically move our families in order to move into a space of shared responsibilities. it has been said that by partnering with someone in marriage, one’s burdons are cut in half while one’s joys are doubled. perhaps this is true of all of our cooperative affiliations.

so, when i’m not thinking about how i can make the quick million i would need to move into “the big old house,” as my children call it, i’ll be pontificating about how my version of motherhood might entail becoming more of a village person. it’s fun to think about, don’t you think?

[for more info about the source for this post, check out the bibliography page on the sidebar to your right.]

i grew up among packs of children on a quiet little street in the heart of town. the lives of my brother and me were filled with driveway basketball games, tree-climbing, lightning-bug-catching, lemonade stands, and the like. but there were several families in particular who really shaped the days of my youth and the lives of my mom and dad as young parents: the L family, the C family, and the B family surrounded us on three sides.

the L, C, and B children were pretty close in age to my brother and me, and while we were busy getting along famously, our parents were constantly helping each other out. our moms took turns picking us up from school and keeping each other’s children during impromptu errands made easier without kids in tow. there were no scheduled play dates or activities. our parents simply let us loose to waltz through each other’s back doors and live out our days covered in sweat, mosquito bites, and melted popsicle juice.

ours are the only kids who play outside in our current neighborhood, apart from our next-door-neighbor’s granddaughter, who visits occasionally and much to our delight. those who live close to our family are simply in different stages of life than we are but their roles in our existance are still essential. at some point while i was discussing the particularities of perennials, bulbs, and shrubs with our friends next door, i knew i could call on them to gather our mail when we’re out of town and even watch the bird in a pinch while i fetch the monkey from school. in turn, i water their bushes and cover them in baked goods.

there is a certain peace of mind that comes with knowing that there are families around who are ready and willing to lend me an egg, eat my leftovers, venture outside for impromptu conversation, and be available in case of emergency. parenting is just easier when you have good neighbors. i’m full of gratitutude for mine!

[the pictures above are from my childhood and serve as payback for all those times my neighbors beat me in basketball, kicked over my bike, and cheated in flashlight tag.]