This might be my favorite cover of a song, ever. Top 5 at least. Love how a white girl transforms an angry rap song into a lullaby. The words, “When I’m called off, I got a sawed off, squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off,” never sounded so sweet, so soothing. I listen to it in the car driving through downtown LA and feel my blood pressure go down, even though that is the opposite impact the song, “Straight Outta Compton,” had on the world when the record dropped in ’88.
What else I love about the song: a friend was at the recording session and said that Nina Gordon was hugely pregnant at the time, that she had trouble balancing the guitar on her lap. And maybe it was this picture in Monday’s Times announcing the third season of “Weeds”…
Or maybe it was thinking about Nina being pregnant but today in traffic, I began to wonder if what I love about the song is that it embodies my fears about motherhood. Tick tock, I suppose I have some decisions to make, and soon. And while I think all the accessories about having a kid are great – super cute red strollers and tiny baby shoes and little dresses – the reality of having a kid is a daunting tidal wave, harder to accessorize. I hear it’s incredible. I see the changes in my friends. I look at my life and can’t imagine the rearrangement.
Is motherhood an assault? On your body? Your freedom? Sure. Are the tradeoffs worth it? Celia Hodes says nope; Julia Roberts says Greatest Thing Ever; Britney’s kids say “Help!” on the cover of two different magazines. At this moment in time, a Tuesday in August when Bush is President and the only Rove to worry about anymore is Roe V. Wade, I feel like I belong to a very small gang of women, childless, in our mid-thirties, dodging the Shiloh’s and the Suri’s shooting past us. We’re crazy motherfuckers, down with the capital E-P-T, women who wanna rumble, but also mumble, unsure of what we want to do vs. what we “should” do vs. what our bodies will let us do. We can pick each other out across a crowded room. We have turf wars at the Farmer’s Market. We sip Bacardi like it’s our birthday every single day. Every day is single.
Had a long week at work topped off with news that an ex-boyfriend is living a perfect life with a perfect wife and a new pool. Went out Friday night looking for trouble. Found it at a bar with a one-eyed guy who repeatedly asked me to marry him, even before the tequila had really kicked in. I laughed it off and asked for another shot. But as I raised the glass to my lips, I paused and squinted. Looking at him with one eye, I could see a future – the guy was funny, cute, and other than a predilection for motorcycles (or murdercycles, as I call them), perfectly great. But when he said he couldn’t wait to have kids, I closed both eyes and downed the drink, got in my car, and headed back to my crib.
Wendy,
I may be mistaken, but I believe that Tom Robbins holds the patent on literary relationships with one-eyed, tequila swigging bikers. Check with your attorney before posting further details.
One of the joys of being thirty-something is that the world is your oyster. The only problem is the dawning realization that the (jaws?) (lips?) (shell?) is/are slowly closing. As is often commented, ours is a strange generation. The very idea of still debating parenthood at our age (for some reason, I’m assuming that you’re the Wendy I knew in Abq.) would have been obscene in another era. Indeed, my younger siblings are now settling down and having children. We, however, don’t even seem to know what we want to be when we grow up.
Look on the bright side, motherhood reduces your opportunities for downing tequila shots with interesting strangers, and a kid would only look at you strangely if you started reminiscing on NWA’s social impact.
I know that citing Robert Frost in a high-brow forum like this is something akin to invoking Godwin’s Law, but if the shoe fits…
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
wendy — i love reading what you write.
hey thanks y’all — josh? did we know each other back when I wore bifocals?
“an ex-boyfriend is living a perfect life with a perfect wife and a new pool. Went out Friday night looking for trouble”. Great line, but what makes you think he now has a perfect life now? Who’s down with OPP, yea, you know me!
Errr. Either I have memory problems, or you’re not the same Wendy I knew, because I have no recollection of bifocals. (Although, to tell the truth, I can barely remember what I looked like back then.) I was one of the thespian geeks at AA.
Marley,
Yeah, that line does sound like something an inspired Springsteen would write while introspectively cleaning the grease from under his fingernails after tuning up the hotrod.
That’s who I was guessin you were! How the heck are ye?
Being a dad has been a great gift to me (as I pore over the latest toy recall news about lead paint used on toys made in China) but I do wonder about the identity issues that appear to go along with parenthood.
You say you can pick out your fellow “homies” across a room? What is it, really, that you have in common? I guess I want to question the matter/degree of “choice” many people have in regards to childbirth/rearing but I was shocked at the mantle of appaent respectability which fell over me upon the birth of our children.
I felt like Eddie Murphy in disguise on the bus when the white people start passing the money out. Young mothers in the market suddenly gave me an approving nod and old ladies gave me a slight smile when they once would have held their purse tighter and taken a step out of my path. I’m not saying I’m a scary guy by any means but I felt so neutered, so safe for public consumption. I wanted to rush the kids home and test my new found friends to see if I carried some look, some mark of Cain that they could use to identify me as a part of a soft, surburban tribe I wanted no part of.
What had I done to deserve this newfound respect, the unquestioned acceptance into Groucho’s club? Was I a better man, a kinder one? No, my wife and I had children, that’s it. An accomplishment (and even a decision) in many particular ways but not that radical a feat given I teach plenty of teenage girls who have managed the trick without many too much trouble.
And Mr. Motorcycle? If you liked him but he scared you off, give him another try. I’m going to go out on a limb and offer that he was giving you the line about kids because he thought that’s what you wanted to hear. I know very few guys who literally “can’t wait” to have kids. Honest.
reuben — this is my favorite comment in a long time.
i’ve been a parent for so long that i don’t really remember not being one. i certainly didn’t have a grown-up identity apart from it. i did feel some remorse for not having a traditional 20s, but the result was, i think, that we went on with our lives. did we want social lives? well, then, strap the kids in the car and drive to NY or DC or wherever. we didn’t travel much, except to see family, but we did, i think, manage to get on with our lives without huge disruption or identity change. the problem is, i really had no single life as an adult to speak of and no child-free time either, so i don’t have much to compare to or lament the loss of. it’s all been one-eyed motorcyclers and tequila shots for us. well, you know what i mean.
WW,
I’m doing well. It’s been a long, strange road from Abq., but I’m living in Spain, trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Actually, I’m getting ready to close down for the day — tomorrow is a bank holiday celebrating The Day They Let the Virgin into Heaven. (Absolutely random, mid-week holidays are one of the real advantages of this country.) Drop me a line if you like, I’d love to hear from you. (elegantbasura@hotmail.com).
Ruben,
I see something similar to what you are describing when I take my little dog for a walk. Scruffy looking individuals by themselves seem a menace, but with a child or a puppy suddenly become respectable members of the community. (This general rule might or might not apply to One-eyed Bikers). At the end of the day, society fears that which it can’t control. It would seem that parenthood is seen as somehow “joining the club”. My guess is that the same thing happens when one joins the owner’s association rather than just renting an apartment.
a wonderful and provocative post, this. i’m transitioning between the single and thirty “world is my (closing) oyster” scene and into…what promises to be a great life as a great wife.
single and thirty-something is some double-edged shit: you’ve got the crib, the job, your bathing ritual, your special produce in the fridge– and it’s nice that no one can scruntinize you and your habits. at least, not if you don’t let them.
then, despite yourself, you fall in love, there’s a ring on your finger, you’re planning a catering menu and reading martha stewart magazines. i’m not kidding. it’s nearly an audible shift…but not in identity. more like in interests. or attitude.
hey, ww, i’m wondering…you write this awesome post and then some old acquaintance from albuquerque who happens to write quite articularly and, not to mention, live in spain shows up to completely relate. a match made in heaven…? another shot of tequila?
um. that would be articulately in the comment above. but i sometimes like to make up words when i’ve been drinking.
Tremain, you’re drunk by noon on a Tuesday? Nice. Planning a wedding will do that.
And WW, you know you’re a bad mutha . . . (shut yo mouth!) . . .
Ruben, Dan Savage did a funny bit on some NPR show (maybe This American Life?) about how everyone looked at him differently after he and his boyfriend had a kid (he also published a book: The Kid). Very straight seeming guys suddenly started to look at him and smile warmly in a way he’d previously not experienced. The best line was something like, “I could be in the grocery store, wearing an orange taffeta dress, carrying a tub of Crisco under my arm, but as long as I had the kid with me, they would smile and say hi.”
The crazy thing about TICK TOCk is that by the time you’re 40 the option expires. Then you live with whatever you chose. I’m sure fear of being old and alone isn’t a good reason to get married and have kids, but what’s a person to do? From age 40 to age 90 you have 50 years to be doing SOMETHING. Ask most 70 year-olds and they’ll say their kids/grandkids are the most important thing in their lives. But you have to have started 30 years before that, and its a leap of faith for sure, esp with one eyed guys in bars as prospects. ( How creepy that he sized you up that fast.)
I guess my point is, that in spite of all the sacrifices and changes, how many people with kids truly regret it in the long term? (Mom and Dad, if you are reading, don’t answer that)
I don’t think people with kids let themselves regret it.
I don’t think people with kids let themselves regret it.
This crazily-cynical statement could be applied to of any of life’s endeavors, careers, moves, relationships, beliefs, habits, etc. So its not a helpful yardstick.
Very few people say they regret having kids, in fact, its the opposite. Maybe they are all in denial. But more likely, it is what they say –one of the best parts of their life, and indeed, in the case of elderly people, one of the ONLY parts of their life that matters anymore. Parents will walk through fire for their child, what else in life can we say that about? Maybe every parent I’ve ever met is just hoodwinking me, but maybe this motherly/fatherly love really is one of the pinnacles of human experience. One way to find out.
WW, I am one of your homies from across the room in this one–related to the whole post. I too down the drink and go out the door. Will I regret being 60 without a 30-year-old daughter to go out to lunch with? Yes. But I can’t get in the space for that first 29 years. The last time I waffled about this, I asked the advice of a dear friend who shall remain nameless unless she chooses to out herself here, and she said if I had a kid I would be “hobbled.” That specific word chilled me and I knew I would maintain my childfree state. I respect and envy those who can go there, and hope they will let me babysit.
A friend of mine once told me that you should wait until you really, really want a child, and then wait another year. I agree. The world “disruption” doesn’t even cover what happens when you become a parent. The difficulties of taking care of a baby are like a bomb going off in a marriage/relationship, assuming that you have one when you take on the task. 80% of motherhood , especially the stay at home type, is thankless, grunt work. It kind of sucks.
That said, I can’t think of any part of my life that I value more than motherhood. I just barely gave birth to my second, and even with all the attendant complications, every day I am beyond grateful for these two little boys. I can’t even express how proud I am to be a parent.
It defines me. I wasn’t a law student like everyone else, I was a mom who went to law school. So I didn’t go out drinking at night, like so many of my law school friends. Instead I went home, and loved and disciplined, and bathed and fed and then collapsed at the end of each day.
Nothing matters more to me. It’s like parenthood is the colorized part of my life, and the other parts are in black and white.
17: I didn’t mean that to sound quite so cynical. But it occurs to me that while (almost) no parents allow themselves to regret having children — or at least to express that kind of regret, many childless people regret not having kids. But many of them don’t. So there’s an interesting asymmetry brought about, I’d suggest, by the high value we place on children and family, and by the emotional entanglement parents have with their children. I don’t think that most parents would regret having kids, even if their emotional mechanisms allowed them to. But I’d bet some would.
Maybe this just means everyone should have kids: “Parenting — The Life-Change You’ll Never Regret!”
It occurs to me that 20 might still sound too cynical, or, God forbid, mean, and might start a fight, rather than further a conversation or simply sit there as a comment. So a bit of context: As a man, I don’t have the same kind of pressure to make the kids/nokids decision within a certain timeframe. As a gay man, I don’t have the same social expectations to have kids, and in fact doing so would be quite a bit more difficult. And personally, I’m really ambivalent about it.
I also find that discussions about child-having and child-rearing often become very personal very quickly, or are taken personally when they’re not meant that way. It’s such an emotionally charged subject, and one about which our discussions and even our emotions are constrained by very powerful but sometimes conflicting cultural norms.
One reason “Weeds” might be so popular is that it isn’t afraid to hit the notes of “maternal animosity” that some people certainly feel — and how odd it can be if you don’t have the maternal feelings that society tells us we should. I think y’all have hit upon the axis of trouble — being hobbled now vs. being hobbled later — potentially. I don’t know where I come down — but know that I hold babies and don’t feel anything — vs some of my friends that literally weep with desire for children. Maybe the chemicals will kick in and I’ll desire more in my life, maybe they won’t. I do know that parenthood is not an adventure I want to undertake solo.
I’m really appreciating Dave’s comment #21. It articulates another double-edged issue– that so many people who want to be parents can’t (at least not the “easy” way), while so many people who don’t want to be parents– or who aren’t really sure they want to be– or think they want to be, but for the wrong reasons– become them.
Wendy, you do such a nice job of bearing your proverbial chest (or your ovaries?) about the issue. For me, the underlying message is that we really gotta think hard about what it means to be a parent– and what a kid needs from his parents in today’s disappearing-bee world.
yeah, Dave thanks for coming back with a little more heart. Its true that men don’t have the biological clock bearing down on them and being gay gives you a whole different perspective as well. I bet there’s the raw materials for a blog post there.
I am wondering if the “no regrets” attitude about kids is akin to the “I would do it all over again” attitude many people have about heartbreaking love affairs.
Life’s choices and how individuals decide –fascinating to behold.
btw,
rebecca is not me.
trixie
Thiis has been an interesting chain.
As a parent, I find myself thinking about Ron Howard’s film “Parenthood” a . . . lot. In particualar the scene where Jason Robards is talking to Steve Martin (his son) about his ambivalence about being a parent. In summary he says “it never ends”, even after your kids grow up you still worry about them, and concludes darkly “it’s not for me.”
This is a loaded scene in so many ways. A father saying to his (good) son I don’t like being your dad. Robards obvious delight in his bad (Tom Hulse) son’s behavior only complicates things.
But what I think this scene expresses is that parenthood IS a mixed “blessing” It is both the most joyous and most sorrowful thing you can do. It changes not only you and your relationship with your partner (if there is one) but also changes your relationship to your own parents. You now know what they did for you, how much they love you, and all the trouble you’ve caused.
And now for my maudlin closer . . .
I’ve always been suspicious of the band Bright Eyes, WAY too EMO seeming, but perhaps, I’ve misjudged.
Doug has a bunch of thier songs on his ipod here and I’ve gotten hooked on a couple of them.
One is the closing 2 minutes of “I Believe In Symmetry”, here are the lyrics:
“The arc of time, the stench of sex
The innocence you can’t protect
Each quarter note, each marble step
Walk up and down that lonely treble clef
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
Each wanting the next one
Each wanting the next one to arrive
An argument for consciousness
The instinct of the blind insect
Who never thinks not to accept its fate
That’s faith, there’s happiness in death
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
The levity of longing that
Distills each dream inside my head
By morning watered down forget
On silver stars I wish and wish and wish
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
From one to the next one
From one to the next right down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line
You give to the next one
You give to the next on down the line”
Just this week I’ve been captivated by these lyrics. And the musical framework that surrounds them is remarkable.
Being a parent puts me in touch with the larger time frame of humanity. And the “mythical/mystical” aspect of human culture. We really do long so much, for so many things. We are caught in a cycle of getting, having and giving away. Being a parent and observing this process up close is strange.
There are definite advantages to not having kids, I think every parent would agree. But also, for those that don’t, I think most parents would say don’t deny yourself some aspect of the parenting experience. There are lots of kids out there, already born, that need parenting. Part-time, full-time, once a month, whatever.
Wow, Robert Frost and Conor Oberst in the same thread. This blog is so fucking emo it makes kittens cry.
WAY too EMO seeming, but perhaps, I’ve misjudged.
no, i think you pegged it.
as for those crying kittens — TGW KITTENZ HAZ WATERWATER EYEHOLZ
Yeah I know they are pretty maudlin. but they’re actually a little better than I expected.
at times anyway
There is also this great article from Ayelet Waldman, which ignited a storm. Angry women on Oprah almost ate her alive, all because she dares to say, I am not in love with my kids, I am in love with my husband. “I can imagine no joy without my husband,” and that her children are “satellites, beloved but tangential.” Which sounds exactly right to me.
parenting kids…
Great stuff here! Ill definitely bookmark this place and come back soon….
bright eyes lyrics…
Well, I do not agree with you in 100% regarding this topic, but it is cool to see different opinions…