Let’s be honest from the start: teenagers are going to rebel. They are going to do things they shouldn’t and if they don’t actually get into trouble it’s only because they didn’t get caught. If your teenager always conforms exactly to your wishes, either you don’t know what they are really up to or their wishes are currently the same as yours. At some point when their wishes diverge from yours too much, your child will choose to do what she wants to do and not what you want her to do. The day will come sooner or later and it’s a normal part of growing up.

Teddy and Jake at 17 and 18

You cannot take the blame or the credit for how your teenager has turned out.  There are two reasons for this.  One is that–as my own teenager told me–kids are a product of genetics and environment and you are not morally responsible for the genes you passed on and the inherent temperament with which your kid was born.  But much more important is a revelation I had last week. You teenagers HAVE NOT TURNED OUT YET.  They are nowhere near done and you cannot judge the finished product right now any more than you could judge a cake by eating half-cooked batter.

Think about your own teenage days, and if you were a perfect teenager like me then think about some of your classmates. Chances are you are friends with them on Facebook now, and they have homes and significant others and steady jobs and more money than you do. They have teenagers of their own whom they love and worry about. And you thought they would never amount to anything, didn’t you? Well you were wrong and if you are worrying about the future of your own teenagers think about that. The vast majority of them turn out fine if they make it through their teens.

And that’s no laughing matter, is it? Because what with teen drivers and drinking and drug use and stupid teenage tricks and feeling invulnerable, there are some teenagers who don’t get to grow up and their parents never see how they would have turned out. That leads me to more Things I Know about teenagers: the two most important tasks in parenting teens.

The first one is keep them alive.  That sounds melodramatic but what it really means is that the truly important rules, the nonnegotiable things, the things you should really be worrying about, are those that impact your teenager’s safety.  Because a bad grade may seem like it will have a dire effect on his future. But it’s really not nearly as big of a deal as ensuring that he HAS a future.  Spend less time worrying about homework and grades and more finding out who your kids’ friends are and where they are going and what they are doing once they get there.

The second task? Preserve your relationship with them. Are you prepared to say my way or the highway and mean it?  Do you really want to go there? Is maintaining compete control worth foregoing a relationship with your grandchildren and your adult child down the road? Because that happens to a lot of parents who are too critical and punitive and authoritarian.  Their kids break free one day and don’t come back.  Or when they do it’s just a matter of politeness and that distance is never bridged.  Do you want that to be you? If not, then let love guide your relationship at every turn, not pride.  Don’t let maintaining control–which you are going to lose anyway–which you are SUPPOSED to lose anyway–guide your actions when you have a problem with your child.

So many people have the kid thing backwards.  They want newborn babies to sleep through the night in a separate room so that they can “get their lives back”–whatever that means–but they hover over these same kids when they are teens, waiting up for them at night, monitoring their homework, telling them what colleges to go to. No. The teen years are a time for letting go, for allowing more and more independence, for encouraging your kids to make good decisions, for trusting them to be the architects of their own lives.  Remember you cannot tell anyone anything.  There are very few mistakes that cannot be fixed down the road, and they are not going to learn from the ones YOU made, no matter how much you wish they could.  They have to make their own.  So let them.

I hate to give this any more attention than it has garnered already. (Good job, Time; your tactic worked!)  I haven’t even read the article and don’t intend to.  But if anyone ever doubted that the sources we once counted on to inform us of the news are now in the business of CREATING the news, look no further than this stunt.  Time doesn’t care to inform us about the truth of extended breastfeeding and the benefits of attachment; they wish to inflame us and create a controversy where there doesn’t need to be one.

The reason I’m responding instead of ignoring is because I’m an expert on extended breastfeeding.  And in the interest of my passion for the truth, I want to share my experiences so that the cover of Time won’t be all that rises to your brain when the subject comes up.

Just like anyone my age, I grew up seeing babies fed mostly with bottles.  For a variety of reasons having to do with the culture of the times and poor advice, four months was the longest my mother nursed a baby.  My impression of breastfeeding, even when I was first pregnant, was that it was something you did for a few months and then you switched to bottles.  I saved the formula coupons I received in the mail while I was pregnant.

But, as you know, I love to read.  It was inevitable that I would do a lot of reading while I was pregnant and a few books I read at that time changed my life.  Emily never had a bottle of formula and I nursed her for 26 months.  I nursed Jake for 38 months (and yes, that means I nursed him throughout my pregnancy with Teddy, and nursed the two of them together until they weaned when Teddy was 26 months old).  William nursed at least until Lorelei was born (which is 42 months) and I don’t remember exactly but I know Lorelei was past four when she stopped.  (Yes, I nursed babies for 13 years.  Give me a medal.)

When Emily was born, the above would have sounded just as weird to me as it may sound to you.  But it’s different when it’s your own kid, your own baby.  Sure, you look at a four-year-old next to a newborn and the contrast seems extreme,  But when you are in the middle of mothering, there’s little difference between nursing your four-month-old or your six-month-old, your one-year-old or your eighteen-month-old, and so on.  It’s a seamless transition.  Do you think anything about letting your ten-year-old sit in your lap?  Would you think it was odd if he wanted to climb into bed with you if he had a nightmare?  Is it strange that my eighteen-year-old son likes to hug me and say, “I love my Mommy?”  I don’t know, maybe you will think it’s strange, but whatever.  You probably have your own sort of strangeness in your house.

I didn’t stand around in the kitchen with my kid on a step stool.  I didn’t pose for any cameras.  I lay down with my preschoolers and bedtime and naptime.  We cuddled on the couch.  They wanted to nurse for comfort when they were hurt or upset.

There are many benefits to extended breastfeeding.  The nutritional and health benefits don’t go away as the child ages.  I have the healthiest children I know, bar none.  Emily has not visited a doctor for illness since she was TWO YEARS OLD.   We’ve had one earache per kid.  No strep throat.  One or two antibiotic prescriptions apiece throughout childhood.  My two younger kids slept with me from birth.  There were no sleep issues or problems.  I never had any difficulty getting anyone down for a nap or to sleep at night or back to sleep if they woke up (once I stopped stressing about solving sleep problems, which I may post about another time).  If someone was hurt or sad, I could comfort them easily.  And my kids are not clingy at all.  Having their needs fully met as infants, toddlers, and preschoolers helps them feel good about themselves, helps them feel secure and safe.  We live in a society that pushes independence on little kids and denies it to big kids.  We stick babies in their own rooms and expect them to sleep through the night and then we monitor our teenagers’ homework and grades and go with them to college orientation and tell them what classes to take.  That’s BACKWARDS, people.

And you know what?  Extended breastfeeding is NORMAL.  It’s  NATURAL.  Around the world, 50% of babies are still being nursed at the age of 20-23 months.  In many countries the figure is much higher.  The WHO recommends children be nursed until the age of two or beyond.  If you don’t want to, that’s fine.  But biologically it is not strange, not weird, not abnormal.  It’s what women’s breasts are FOR, and even though Time meant to be provocative, it’s pretty damn pathetic that people can be whipped into a fury over a woman using her breast for its intended purpose on one magazine cover while not saying a WORD about all the synthetic almost-bare breasts adorning the covers of all the other magazines.

Source: http://www.whattoexpect.com/toddler/breastfeeding-a-toddler.aspx

 
55 Reading Questions

 
1. Favorite childhood book?

Really?  There are SO MANY.  The first “big” book I read and loved was Black Beauty.  I read it 8 times before I started first grade. (Yes, I was a precocious little reader.)

http://papertrail.candutch.ca/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=915&=SID

2. What are you reading right now?

Well, this is a little embarrassing.  I can’t recall the name of it and I will no doubt forget all about it within 24 hours of reading it.  It’s one of my guilty pleasure books, a Love Inspired Suspense paperback that I got for free by temporarily joining their book club.  (Update:  That’s what I WAS reading when I started writing this.  Since then I’ve read Up Country for my book club, The Horse and His Boy which I found laying around the house somewhere, and probably more that I can’t remember.  I’m actually currently reading Freakanomics.)
3. What books do you have on request at the library?

None.  I only do libraries in the summer.
4. Bad book habit?

I’m actively training myself in the use of bookmarks right now.  I usually leave my books lying open and face down.  I have, however, stopped bending the corners of the pages down.
5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?

None (see above).  I think my privileges are probably suspended at the moment anyway.  I am just terrible about returning books on time.
6. Do you have an e-reader?

Nope, and I don’t want one.  Hope I never cave on this. (Update:  My birthday has come and gone and now I own an iPad with an app on it that opens the doors to the wide world of e-reading.  I have a friend who only e-publishes a lot of her work and I want to read her stories.  Don’t look to find me curled up with my iPad reading Gone with the Wind any time soon.)
7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?

One at a time.
8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?

No.  I would not be reading right now, I’d be working.  Or perhaps doing dishes.
9. Least favourite book you read this year (so far)?

I have probably read 50 books or more this year and I don’t keep a list.  I don’t recall actively hating any book but most of the romances are pretty forgettable.
10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?

Probably The Quiet Game.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?

Never.  Why would I take something that’s a pleasure and make it unpleasant?  Besides, my zone is pretty big.
12. What is your reading comfort zone?

See above!  I like stupid romances, mysteries, suspense, religious books, parenting books . . . I especially like legal thrillers.
13. Can you read on the bus?

As a child I did it all the time.  These days I would get sick.  I can only read on the interstate (not, of course, while driving).
14. Favorite place to read?

In my bed.
15. What is your policy on book lending?

No problem.
16. Do you ever dog-ear books?

I used to but I’ve stopped.  I don’t want to mutilate the books I’m keeping and I want the ones I’m getting rid of in good enough condition to be accepted by McKay’s.
17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?

Not since college.
18. Not even with text books?

LOL.  See above.  It was hard for me even to get used to doing that.  I know people make notes in books and sometimes it seems like it would be a good idea but I just can’t bring myself to do it.
19. What is your favourite language to read in?

English.  I am proud of having at one point been able to more or less read books in French but now that my French, Latin, and Old English texts are gone I doubt I will be replacing them.
20. What makes you love a book?

A gripping page-turning story.  Characters I get emotionally involved with.  A sense of place and time.
21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?

I will recommend non-fiction books that made enough of an impression on me to actually influence what I DO (or try to do).  As for fiction, that depends on what the people I’m talking to are looking for.
22. Favorite genre?

Legal thrillers/mysteries.
23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did)?

Spiritual/Theology.  I have tons of them but most days my brain is too tired.
24. Favourite biography?

You know, I get these but never seem to get through them.  I had a lovely one of St. Thomas More that I read part of, and another enormous one about Dickens.  These were in the to-be-read pile pre-fire.  I cannot remember when I’ve read one as an adult.  Now, as a child, I read tons.  There was a shelf in the school library with somewhat simplified stories, always starting with the famous person’s childhood, and I loved those.  I was especially fond of Helen Keller and read every book about her I could find.
25. Have you ever read a self-help book?

I’m sure I have.  My husband is a big fan, and he had a couple of shelves full.  But I can’t really remember any, unless you call parenting books self-help books.   In general, I’m suspicious of any books that promise smooth sailing and a happy life in a few easy steps.  Life is hard and I don’t know any shortcuts.
26. Favourite cookbook?

I’m not a huge cookbook collector.  Mostly I don’t use recipes.  The two go-to books I relied on were the 1970s edition of The Joy of Cooking and the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.  If I needed to make a pie crust or cook a lobster tail that’s where I turned for advice.  I had a couple of beautiful cookbooks with gorgeous pictures and never got around to making a single thing out of them.  The exception to all this is Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking, which I loved loved loved and made almost every single recipe in.  I even broke my writing in books rule to put personalized comments on the recipes, how we liked them, what changes I made.  And later I bought the author’s second book on making soups.  These are books I will definitely be replacing, because not only are the recipes good, they are spiritual books filled with interesting and inspiring stories.  And the premise of the bread-making book is that making bread is a spiritual experience–the author examines his conscience as he mixes his dough each day.

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?

Couldn’t tell you.  Can’t remember.  I guess I wasn’t that inspired.
28. Favorite reading snack?

N/A since I usually read in bed.
29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.

For me, it’s usually the opposite.  I’m suspicious of hype.  I did not read the Harry Potter books for years because I figured a book everyone was making such a fuss over was probably lowbrow (I’m an intellectual snob).
30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?

I don’t really seek out critical comment in advance.  I read what looks good to me.
31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?

Since I don’t have a huge reach and am not likely to end anyone’s career with my opinion, I enjoy it.
32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?

Latin.

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?

I guess Madame Bovary, in French, for a college French Lit class.  It was exhausting and took forever, and I had to cheat and read the last few chapters in English.  And then after all that suffering I hate the book anyway.

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?

I wouldn’t say I’m nervous but I know I should read things like War and Peace and Ulysses and the thought makes me exhausted.

35. Favorite Poet?

Oh, Wordsworth, definitely, courtesy of Professor Betz and his Sophomore Honors English course.  Professor Betz was my advisor in college.  He’s a renowned Wordsworth scholar who spends summers hanging out in the same places Wordsworth did.  I find that when someone is that passionate about a subject, he cannot help but transfer some of that passion to his students.  I’m also fond of William Blake and all the Romantic Poets.  I love Poe.  I can appreciate modern poetry, but I will always prefer the kind that rhymes.
36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?

Probably around ten.
37. How often have you returned books to the library unread?

Not too often, occasionally at the end of the summer when I know that if I don’t I will probably never remember and will end up with another enormous fine and be stuck without the use of my card until they have another one of those days where I can trade them cans of food to erase the fines!
38. Favorite fictional character?

How can I answer that? I don’t think I can.  There are so many characters that I love.  Today I will go with Will McLean from The Lords of Discipline, arguably my favorite book of all time.

39. Favourite fictional villain?

I’m supposed to like the villains?  Today I will go with Rhett Butler.  I know, he’s a scoundrel, not a villain, but I really do think he gets off lightly.  Scarlett would never have gotten into so much trouble if he hadn’t egged her on.

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?

Something I’d like to read aloud in the car.  This used to be a favorite pastime of mine and my husband’s.  I also bring all the magazines I’m behind on.  Because I read ALL THE TIME, I have no need for a special “beach book.”  I ALWAYS find time to read, so it’s not a priority on vacation and I might actually watch t.v (which I don’t do at home) instead!
41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.

I gave up reading for Lent in the second grade.  Dumb idea and I was miserable.  It sure was a sacrifice though.  I did not read a book for about a month after the house burned down.  For one thing, all my books burned up.  I was also overwhelmed and exhausted.  Too, there was some kind of weird element of, “My books are all gone.  I can’t read any more.”  I didn’t even FEEL like reading.

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.

I can’t think of one.  I know I had a few that I put down halfway through but I always planned to get back to them.  And that’s rare.  Usually if I’ve gone to the trouble to start I will finish.
43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?

Nothing.  It’s a problem.
44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?

The Lord of the Rings films.  I can remember mourning as a child that it would be impossible to bring those books to the screen, but they did it and did it well.
45. Most disappointing film adaptation?

Umm . . . most of them?  I know that you have to make changes when bringing a book to life on the screen.  But when I cannot understand WHY the changes were necessary, I don’t like it.  The first thing that comes to mind is “The Secret of Nimh,” loosely based on Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, one of the best children’s books ever.  WHY was her name changed to Mrs. Brisby in the movie?  Why did the rats look like terrifying otherworldly creatures instead of, you know, rats?

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?

I may have spent around $100 at Christmas time.  But that’s not typical.  I get almost all of my books used.
47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?

I might look at a book a little first to decide whether to buy it.  But once I’ve got it at home I don’t skim it.  Why would I want to spoil the surprise?
48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?

I would have to be either very frightened or very bored.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?

Yes, I like to keep series together of course, and I had a whole bookshelf devoted to series.  I had all the “best” books in the living room, and they were loosely grouped around themes–literature, language, coffee table . . . I kept the things that I hadn’t read yet, or were very special to me, on the bookshelf in my room.  Things are different now, with stacks on the table in my room, the classics we got at the used bookstore at Spring Hill in our one book case in the living room, kids books in the playroom, and soot-stained books in the garage.
50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?

I used to keep a lot more than I do now.  Now I only keep them if it’s a series I’m collecting or I really, really love them.  Otherwise they go to McKay’s or the church Book Swap.
51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?

If I was, they are gone now.
52. Name a book that made you angry?

Breaking Dawn.  Waste of money.  Waste of time.  Waste of potential for moral uplift foreshadowed in the earlier books in the series.  Basically badfic and wish fulfillment.

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?

The Harry Potter series.  Did it EVER exceed my expectations.  The Sue Grafton ABC murders.  These are EXCELLENT.  I thought they’d be gimmicky but they are first class.

http://blog.jaclynday.com/post/7010671776/what-ive-read-sue-graftons-kinsey-millhone

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?

11/22/63.  I DID like it, but not as much as I thought I would.  It had some problems that I think Stephen King gets away with because he’s, you know, STEPHEN KING.
55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?

I call it a guilty pleasure but really, what’s to feel guilty about?  I like to read Love Inspired Christian romance novels which I can almost always get for free through book club offers.  I like to read them because they are mildly entertaining but I have no trouble putting them down, whereas if I get involved in a good thriller I may be up half the night or neglect other things I need to be doing.  And I prefer the Christian ones even though the spirituality can be a bit ham-handed, and even though they are always non-denominational Protestants (one of these days I am going to write a Catholic one, or get my daughter to do it!) because there are no sex scenes in them.  No, I don’t have moral objections to love scenes in novels, but after all the romance novels I consumed as a teenager, they frankly bore me.  And it’s also nice to read about characters who have the same moral values that I have in that area.

Okay, if you got this far, now it’s your turn.  Answer some or all of the questions, either in the comments below, or in your own blog post (post the link in the comments)!  I’d like to hear what YOU have to say about books and reading.

I really should have taken a picture, even though all you would have seen was the backs of their heads. The other night ALL FIVE of our kids (Emily being home from college for the summer already!) were lounging around the family room watching Star Trek (yes, of course it was the original series. And they were watching “Amok Time,” one of my favorite episodes ever.)

I cannot remember a time I didn’t know about Star Trek. I watched reruns with my father on Sunday afternoons. My cousin chased me around from time to time pretending to be Sulu (don’t know why!). I cried when Spock died (one of the first times I can remember crying over a movie).

So I liked the show, but then I met John and he was a FAN. He had Star Trek novels and technical manuals. He got a calendar every year. He had DOLLS, for heaven’s sake! He’d been to conventions! Yes, he was a Trekker (NOT Trekkie. That’s insulting.).

After we got married, we used to go to Blockbuster every few days and check out two episodes. We watched them all in chronological order. We started collecting them. I gave John some awesome Star Trek gifts from the Franklin Mint–a 3-dimensional chess set, a model of the Enterprise, a phaser. He acquired a tricorder that actually made noises! We collected tons of memoirs and novels and novelizations. We bought more dolls on eBay. We had a vision of the room where one day we would display this magnificent collection.

Well.

We still have the books.

Anyway, let’s cheer up, shall we? On a recent trip to McKay’s (our used book and movie and CD and album store that we LOVE) John acquired the entire original series on DVD. Jake has started watching them almost every night. A few evenings ago William and Lorelei got into the act. John had very definite ideas of what he wanted to watch on t.v. before bed but the little people had waited ALL DAY to watch Star Trek with Daddy and they weren’t taking no for an answer. “If you won’t watch it,” proclaimed William darkly, “There will be CONSEQUENCES.” Guess who won that argument?

All of which led to that golden moment the other night in which without argument all five kids sat entranced in front of the t.v. watching Spock throw plomeek soup at Nurse Chapel while John and I worked in the office and listened, able to visualize the whole thing without even looking at the screen.

(I did go out to watch Spock smile at the end, though. That’s my very favorite Star Trek moment.)

                  — Walt Whitman

We heard America singing–for real–last Thursday at the Spring Concert at Lorelei’s school.  I’ve endured attended countless plays, pageants, and concerts in my 21 years of parenting, but this one stands out.  In between renditions of our National Anthem and Yankee Doodle (that was Lorelei’s class) and other patriotic songs enthusiastically performed by cute kids and accompanied by hand gestures, we were treated to proclamations of the Gettysburg Address, the First Amendment to the Constitution, Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, and other words that symbolize what America stands for.

“I’m American, you’re American!” sang the children, and they were the melting pot personified up on the stage.  No one needs to preach diversity when you can see it right in front of you.  There is no better explanation of what it means to be an American than to see the great-grandchildren of slaves standing on a stage with white kids whose ancestors  probably landed two hundred years ago along with more recent arrivals from Asian and Latino countries, all of them smiling and singing in English “This land is my land.”

So with a happy tear in my eye I went on to my next engagement, a meeting of my book club at which we watched the famous movie adaptation of our most recent book, To Kill a Mockingbird.  It’s so easy, watching this vivid reminder of the dark history of race relations in the South, to feel complacent about how far we’ve come.  My older daughter attends college in Mobile, Alabama, and of course her classmates are as diverse as Lorelei’s are.  Twenty years ago, the sight of an interracial couple walking down the streets of Knoxville would make you look again.  No longer. 

But the human heart is a dark and secret place, and prejudices still lurk there.  All Tom Robinson’s troubles started, remember, when he walked past a white woman’s house.  And look what happened to Trayvon Martin, who had the gall to “walk while black” through a mostly white neighborhood.  That he had the legal right to be there, that he was actually a guest there, didn’t matter to a man who saw only the color of his skin and made predictable assumptions thereupon.

Prejudice against certain immigrant communities of the past, like the Irish and the Italians, may have died out, but there are new immigrants to take their place as the targets of our collective suspicion.  Just yesterday I heard someone talking about “all these people with their strange religions” coming in and changing our country which was “founded upon Christian principles.”  Religious freedom is one of the bedrocks upon which this nation was founded, actually.  And what is the Number One Christian Principle if it’s not “Love one another”?

At the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout walks Boo Radley (surely the personification of the hated and feared “other”) back to his house.  She stands on his porch and realizes that she had “never seen [the] neighborhood from this angle . . . [Atticus] said you never really knew a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.  Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.”  Later that evening she says of a character in a book Atticus is reading to her: “He hadn’t done any of those things . . . Atticus, he was real nice . . . ” and he replies, “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

My family are writers from way back.  My mother has a journalism degree; a former journalist for the Catholic press, she’s tried her hand at everything from children’s books to plays to feature articles on a variety of topics.  Her great-grandfather was the founder of the Kentucky Irish-American newspaper.    I know there are more and if she’s reading this she will probably chime in!

I like to think I am a good writer.  I’ve been making up stories before I could write them down.  I was co-editor of my high school paper and won awards back in the day.  I churned out A earning papers throughout college and got an Honors degree in English.  I was a reporter and columnist for the Catholic press for many years.  I wrote some pretty good X-Files fanfiction a few years back.  And of course there is this blog.

But my daughter Emily is the real writer.  She writes all the time–it’s necessary to her.  She fills up notebooks with partial stories, lists of names for characters, character sketches, story ideas.  She’s written two entire short novels.  She’s majoring in Creative Writing and plans to go to graduate school to continue studying writing.  All she wants to do is write.  I have no doubt that she will be a published author some day.  She is amazing.

And I’m not the only one who thinks so, because last week she was awarded the Rev. Andrew C. Smith, S.J. Poetry Prize at the Honors Convocation at Spring Hill College, where she is a Junior.

I cried when I read the poem, which hit pretty close to home (you’ll see) especially considering what I had just written myself the day before.  But Emily doesn’t think it’s that great, and I had to beg her to let me publish it here.  If you disagree with her, please leave some love in the comments.

It’s there every time I go into the garage.  The smell of fire.  It’s there, and then I’m here:

That’s not a place I really like to be, figuratively or otherwise.  In fact, it’s become a bit of a thing:  I don’t drive down that part of Northshore any more, no matter how inconvenient the detour.

But I can’t avoid the garage.  And the boxes of pictures and books that survived the devastation.

I’ve decided that the books will stay in the garage.  We will put them on shelves, and whenever I decide to read one I will attempt to clean it then.  Occasionally I will pick one up and flip through it, and leave the garage with sooty hands that smell of fire.

Then there is the box of photo albums and baby books, miraculously rescued from a cabinet in the office.  The pictures need to be removed from the albums.  They are probably deteriorating.  I can’t make myself do it.  Emily will finish the job she began over Christmas this summer, I’m sure.

Right after the fire I worried that I would always be haunted by the smell of burning, that I would never be able to enjoy the scent of a campfire again.  But that’s not the case.  Campfires, smoke from a barbecue, the aroma of someone’s fireplace in winter, even the mulch fire running amok near downtown right now–that doesn’t bother me.  It’s the singular scent of our own personal fire that I find uniquely disturbing.

Seven months later it both seems long ago and very close, especially when another loss makes itself felt, when I suddenly think of something that I have only no, I don’t have it anymore.  It’s a little joke around here, saying, “I had that, but IT BURNED UP!”  But there’s a morbid part of me that keeps me lying awake some nights going room by room (not of the burned house, which to be honest never really felt like home, but of my Victorian house), looking in each drawer at things that are gone, remembering even what the drawer pulls felt like, torturing myself with my incredibly clear visual memory and discovering new things that I haven’t had a chance to feel sad about yet.

Go read it or what I’m going to write won’t make any sense.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nina-collins/gap-year_b_1416549.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=2291676,b=facebook#sb=678259,b=facebook

Some people were all like, “Yay!  What a super mom!  How understanding!  I hope I’m like that when my kid’s a teenager!”  Others were like, “Not in my house!  Over my dead body!”

As you might predictably assume, I’m in the over-my-dead-body camp.  And sure, we could easily say premarital sex is BAD.  Sinful.  End of story.

But there’s more to be said about this, it seems to me.  And there are many reasons why even parents who theoretically don’t object to premarital sex might have a problem with this arrangement.

The mom in the story trots out that tired old argument:  They are going to be doing it anyway.  Why should we make it more dangerous by having them sneak around?  Let’s give them a safe place to have sex and that way I can make sure my daughter is taking her birth control pills regularly!

Besides the squick factor of KNOWING your daughter is in your basement having sex with her boyfriend RIGHT THIS MINUTE, this argument leads to the logical conclusion that we should all be letting our teenagers do anything they want at home in order to keep them safe, life drinking and using drugs, for example.  Aside from the fact that doing this puts parents at risk for criminal prosecution, AND the additional fact that studies have shown that kids whose parents let them drink at home have MORE alcohol problems down the line than those whose do not, there is the small matter of setting standards.

As parents we are supposed to set standards that we want our kids to follow.  Yes, we know they probably won’t always follow them, because teenagers think they are immortal and have undeveloped brains and boys will be boys and all that.  But we are still supposed to have them.  What’s more, even if they act like they don’t, our kids WANT and EXPECT this.  Just like toddlers exploring their limits, teenagers are pushing all the time.  But if your rules are reasonable, they may argue, they may break them, but they won’t hate you for them or expect you not to have them.  My 18-year-old limit-pusher declared this article “sick,” and said “no kind of parent” should allow such a thing.

It’s in the nature of kids to rebel.  The author of one of my favorite parenting books suggests that if you don’t allow your teenagers to rebel in small ways, they will look for bigger ones.  “Not letting them rebel” doesn’t just mean having uber-strict rules, it also means not having ANY so there is no way for your teenager to explore issues of freedom and individuality.  If your teenager dies her hair pink and you say, “Oh, cool!” she will have to find some more radical way to be her own person and irritate you.  If you say, as the author suggests, “Yuck!  But it’s your hair,” you’ve given her autonomy to explore and to rebel against your tastes.  I have to wonder what on earth the girl in the article will do when she leaves for college to assert her independence.

I’m also concerned about the unnatural affect this premature level of togetherness is having on the young couple’s relationship.  Teenage romances are supposed to be fraught with uncertainty.  You are supposed to be mooning around waiting for phone calls and looking forward eagerly to the next meeting.  You are supposed to be doing your homework and hanging out with friends and wondering where your boyfriend is and what he is up to.  You often have to deal with long separations brought on by family vacations, summer camps, and even college.  Under these pressures relationships often end, and there aren’t many teenagers who look back longingly at these relationships five years later.  They’ve moved on.

On the other hand, especially strong relationships MAY last as the couple learn together to navigate issues of trust and separation.  There are the “high school sweethearts” who stay together and eventually marry.  But that’s rare.

Allowing these kids to live together is short-circuiting the process above.  These kids aren’t even 20 and they are already like an old married couple.  They don’t need to worry about learning to trust because the other is always in view.  They don’t have the opportunity to explore attraction to other people.  What is more, they are like an old married couple with none of the normal pressures that come with marriage.  Mommy pays their bills.  She provides their housing.  They are living a fairytale.  They are playing house.

The mother implies that the only consequence of sex is pregnancy, and her daughter’s faithful use of birth control pills prevents that.  She doesn’t take into account the bonding effects of sexual intimacy.  Teenagers who sneak around don’t get to sleep in the same bed and have sex every day.  This young couple are bathing themselves in powerful binding hormones.  By allowing this arrangement she is essentially insuring that either they are going to get married, even if under normal circumstances they each might have found different partners down the line, OR that they are going to have a very painful breakup while at their separate colleges, akin to a divorce, at a time when they are both young and immature and vulnerable and supposed to be learning and having fun and preparing for the future.

Would you care to weigh in?  Would you allow this in your home? 

This Easter felt like even a bigger deal than usual to me.  For one thing, all holidays post-fire feel like milestones.  I know what happened to us doesn’t compare to a death in the family, but things are different now.  Not only are we in a new place, but we’ve lost all the trappings of celebrations past–the baskets, the bunnies, the decorations.  Easter has never been about decorating for me, but I do particularly mourn the loss of my three Polish Easter eggs, brought to me from Poland by a Georgetown History Graduate student back in 1990 when I was the secretary of the History Department there.

So the first thing I had to do was use the last of my Target gift cards for an Easter Basket shopping trip.

Jake with the new Easter baskets, waiting for me to finish up at Target

Stress and finances have made inroads into the once annual excursion for new Easter clothes–getting a new Easter dress was practically a religious observance for me well into my college years, and I took great pride in the matching outfits I scored for the three “big kids” when they were small–but this year several of us decided to get some new things.  Jake had a nice suit John bought him last fall, and he and I found an Easter tie (thank you to the giver of the TJMaxx gift card!).  John took Teddy out suit shopping, but finding a suit that would accommodate his large chest and relatively small waist proved impossible, so he ended up with a blazer and pants.  I took Emily dress shopping, and I actually used my own Christmas Kohl’s gift card to get some new things for myself (more on my lack of personal possessions in another post!).  The little people were content with “new to them” items given us after the fire.

I waited a little late (Yikes! the day before!) to go bunny shopping.  It turned into a three-hour odyssey, and in the end finding matching bunnies for four out of five kids (one considers himself past wanting bunnies on Easter) proved impossible.  Lorelei has carried her sheep around every day since, and William was delighted with his possum (to replace one lost in the fire) so I needn’t have worried.

The Easter Bunny brought plenty of candy.  There was much speculation by William and Lorelei on the nature of the Bunny, where he comes from, what he looks like, why he does what he does, and who his “minions” are.  There were also sweet rolls for breakfast.  There are always sweet rolls (hot cross buns, really, only I’m not crafty enough for that so they are just glazed) or cinnamon rolls made from the sweet roll recipe (and I was trying for less mess and stress) on Easter morning.  This was my mother’s tradition, but the glitch this year is that no one has the recipe any more.  I had copied it down years ago in my notebook of special recipes.  My mother lost the original and had taken to calling me if she needed it.  You know what happened to my notebook.  I couldn’t find the exact recipe online.  Between the two of us we figured it out–they tasted like they were supposed to!

Easter Mass is the greatest celebration of the Church year.  We made sure to arrive early–in fact we were so early we had to wait outside for the previous Mass to finish up!  But that was okay because we were treated to an Easter Parade as folks exited, and we got to talk to the people who go to ten o’clock Mass!  The Church looked beautiful, and we sang the right songs.

I was especially pleased to have Jake’s girlfriend as our special guest at Mass.

We’ve had guests over many times since we moved–four birthday celebrations and a Christmas Open House–but we had not yet hosted a holiday dinner.  We went out on Thanksgiving, and my sister did Christmas.  We had not hosted a holiday dinner for quite some time, actually–the last time was two Easters ago, at our then-new house, the house which is now burned down.  We were so happy and hopeful that day, with no way of knowing either the very bad or the very good things that were headed our way.

Anyway, I decided Easter would be a relatively stress-free way to begin our turn at holiday hosting.  We made a rule that no one could bring more than two things.  My mother brought fried chicken and angel biscuits.   My sister Anne (Betsy and her husband were not with us this year) brought macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes.  I made baked beans, green beans, and sickeningly sweet tea–just the way we all like it.  Emily made lemon bars and mint juleps.  My father and stepmother brought a butter pecan cake.  Anne’s mother-in-law brought a ham.  And even Lorelei made some cookies (with Jake’s help).   All together there were 18 of us for dinner!  We did it buffet style and it went smoothly and was delicious.

Of course Easter would not be Easter for the little people without an Easter egg hunt.

photo credit: Emily Sholly

It was a truly blessed Easter.  How was yours?

I’m not tooting my own horn–I mean, I thought that was just how mothers mostly are.  I bet most of you mothers reading are like that.

What would you think of a mother who would provide her own child with illegal drugs?  Who would hide behind her prominent family while selling pain pills to other young teenagers?  Who would not call 911 to assist a teenager who was slowly dying in the home of drug-dealing acquaintances?

Laurie Pelot Gooch

Laurie Gooch is the mother of Henry Granju‘s girlfriend.  I’ve written plenty about Henry almost since I first began blogging, but if you don’t know his story you can start here.  Ms. Gooch is also the daughter of a prominent Knoxville politician, and one cannot help but speculate that her family connections have thus far shielded her from prosecution for her activities.  She was finally arrested and charged, thanks to a KPD investigation fueled by information provided by Henry’s mother.  But now apparently she has been allowed to plea to lesser charges and may serve no jail time at all.

I don’t know Laurie Gooch’s whole life story.  I don’t know what has happened to make her the person she is today.  Perhaps she has redeeming qualities of which I am unaware.  But I know enough to know where she belongs right now:  behind bars.  Not only is she a danger to the teenagers of Knoxville, including her own child, but letting her plea her way out of this doesn’t do much to end the scourge of prescription drug abuse that is killing our teenagers and ripping families apart every day.

Please help by sharing this post or any of Henry’s mama’s posts on this topic.  You can go here to sign a petition that will go to the sentencing judge.  You can go here to find out how to write him a letter asking that he refuse to grant her judicial diversion.

If you are a mom (and even if you aren’t) let’s do what mothers do, or what they are supposed to do.  Let’s take action to protect all the vulnerable children–teenagers are still children–in our midst from those who would prey upon them.