How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane

by Johanna Stein

  twenty-four

  THE UNDYING TRUTH

  We are spending a perfect day at the park.

  The daughter is in the sandbox, playing with a little boy named Giacomo while his mother sits on a nearby bench. Though we are the only two adults here, the mother and I are not friends, nor are we engaged in idle-playground new-mom chitchat. That’s because she speaks no English, and I speak no Italian; as I said, it’s a perfect day. (I have always felt—and hated—the pressure to start a friendship with another mother based solely on the fact that we both had unsafe intercourse with our respective spouses in roughly the same twelve-month time span. Sorry, ladies—simultaneous bonking does not a BFF make.)

  Giacomo, however, does speak English, and I am enjoying the sounds of his adorable, four-year-old Italian-waiter accent as he and my kid chat their way through random topics, every one of them a passionate non sequitur.

  Giacomo: “THE SUN, EEEEEET IS SO YELLLLLOW AND RRRROUND!”

  My Kid: “I HAVE PINK SANDALS!”

  Giacomo: “I AM VERRRRRY GOOOOD AT SWEEMMING!”

  My Kid: “MY UNCLE IAN IS ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS!”

  Giacomo: “DOOO YOOOOU LIIIEEEKE DOGS-AH?!”

  My Kid: “I SAW A FAIRY ONCE!”

  Then Giacomo lobs, “MY PAPA, ’E IS A DOCTOR-RR-EH, BUT TODAY ’E IS A LEEEETTLE BEET SICK.”

  My daughter asks why is he sick. Did he eat too much candy? (Yes, that is one of the lies that I tell her. It’s just my attempt to save her from my own sick Skittles dependency from which I suffer on an hourly basis.)

  Giacomo says, “EH, NO. HE HAS DE FLU AND ’E WILL BE BETTERRRR, MAYBE TOMORROW. BUT ONE DAY ’E WEEEEELL BE DEAD.”

  My daughter, clearly alarmed by this nuclear bomb of information, half says/half questions, “HE’S NOT GOING TO DIE? . . .”

  Giacomo says with a cheerful smile, “EH, YES, ONE DAY HE WILL DIE. AND SO TOO WEEEEELL YOUR MOTHERRR.”

  My daughter looks at Giacomo like he has just slapped her across the cheek with a full-grown halibut. And then she proceeds to cry her fish-slapped face off.

  I look to Giacomo’s mom, who, native language notwithstanding, doesn’t seem as alarmed as she really ought to be, considering that her son has clearly just shoved my daughter into an emotional abyss.

  Giacomo turns and says something to her in Italian (“BLA BLA BLA BLA MOR-TAY”), his chubby little sand-covered hands gesturing cartoonishly. His mother listens, then shrugs and nods at me as if to say, “Eh, yes, someday you too will be dead, eh?” *

  Then Giacomo nods and says one more time (because once wasn’t enough), “YES, YOUR MOTHERRRR, ONE DAY-EE SHE WEEELL BE DEAD.” He then shrugs his little shoulders and returns to building a sand castle, or perhaps it was a sand mortuary, I don’t recall.

  Thanks, Giacomo, you little mini-sadist. I was hoping to address this issue a whole lot later, maybe over some floating Sea Monkeys, but I guess now is as good a time as any.

  I take my little blonde wailing mess into my chest, wrap my arms around her, and utter some long “sssshhhh” sounds that I believe to be reassuring. She pulls away, looks me straight in the eyes, and asks between sobs, “IS IT TRUE, MOMMY? ARE YOU GOING TO DIE?”

  Now I am sure there’s a right way to answer this question, but I am also sure that I couldn’t find the answer, not even if I had a million monkeys Googling on a million laptops for a period of eight to ten weeks.

  It occurs to me that I could just lie and say, “Of course not, silly! That’s never going to happen!” But I won’t lie.* When it comes to my kid, I believe in total honesty, mainly because I have the memory of a thumbtack, and keeping track of lies is a practical impossibility for me; also because I fear the sick and ironic sense of humor of an entity/being/god-thingy who would strike me down instantly for telling such a whopper.

  But I’m also unsure how to tell this particular truth. I come from a long line of emotional avoiders, especially where death is involved. I am obsessed with it.†

  And while other women like to visualize their weddings or map out their fantasy European vacations, I like to plan my own funeral. ‡ §

  “IS IT TRUE, MOMMY?”

  On the other hand—and this is a big, wart-covered hand—I am unmatched in my ability to believe that I and my loved ones are all immortal (despite the fact that none of us are vampires—not proven, anyway). Like the majority of idiots in our blissfully dopey North American culture, I have done a very good job, thank-you-very-much, of living in total avoidance of death.

  Point of fact: A few years ago, just a few months after the death of my great-aunt Naomi (one of the craziest, loudest, most foul-mouthed, and wonderful old bats you could ever hope to meet), I was on the phone with my dad when he said, “I was talking to your brother the other day. He didn’t know that Naomi had died. Isn’t that weird?” I wanted to say, “No, Dad, that’s not weird. What’s weird is the fact that none of us thought to call and tell him that she’d died. That’s what’s weird—the fact that our entire freaking family is in denial of our mortality!” Instead, I said, “Yeah, Dad. That is weird.”

  “IS IT TRUE, MOMMY?”

  I am experiencing complete mental paralysis; give me the existence of God . . . How gravity works . . . Bestiality even. I’ll explain them all a thousand ways and with pictures. Just please, not this one.

  “IS IT TRUE?”

  This moment is going to take delicacy and tact. And sensitivity. So I look her straight in the eyes, and with all the sincerity I can muster I say, “Hey, are you hungry for ice cream, cuz I sure am!!”

  But no, the child is not hungry for ice cream. Not for the first time since ever.

  As my mind races to find new evasion tactics, the kid stops crying and looks at me with a fake smile on her face and an odd sense of calm. She asks again, “IS IT TRUE, MOMMY? ARE YOU GOING TO DIE?”

  With every iota of energy in my body, I fight the urge to avoid, deflect, joke, or subject-change. Instead, I take a deep breath and say, “One day, a very, very, very, very, very, very long time from now . . . yes.”

  I start to back that up with some Lion King “circle of life” rhetoric, how “if nothing ever died, then there would be no room for anything else to grow . . . ,” but I have lost her. If the earlier tears were a storm, she is now at a Category 5 Typhoon. And yet as unmoored as this makes me feel, there is a tiny part of me that is watching her and marveling at the depth of her sadness. Here I am, decades older than this kid, and I have never in my life felt this kind of grief (because, as I mentioned, I come from a family of emotional moe-rons).

  Unbelievably, some mothering instinct in me kicks in. I hold her and rock her and say over and over how it’s not going to happen for a long time, then touch every wooden surface we pass as I carry her (all forty-nine pounds of her) four blocks home.

  She calms down enough that her wailing becomes a whimper. I bring her into the house where we find her dad. He can see from her tear-stained, poppy-red face that something emotionally gnarly has gone down. This is confirmed when she flings herself into his chest and then looks into his face and says, “I’m really going to miss Mommy.”

  He gives me a “What the fo?” look, and it takes me a moment but finally I understand what is going on in that troubled head of hers: she has taken Giacomo at his word. “One day, your mother will die.” According to my four-year-old, death isn’t a universal concept to be grasped, absorbed, and wrestled with for a lifetime. It’s a selective piece of bad news and apparently applies to only me. (And maybe Giacomo’s dad.)

  As her tears subside, I decide to let her misunderstanding lie, at least for the moment. We’ve had enough trauma for one afternoon, and I don’t have the heart to correct her misinterpretation by informing her that one day not only will I die, but so will her dad, and her grandparents, and her dog, her fish, her roly-polies in the garden, and her friends.

  And so, too, will she.

  And now it’s not just for her sake that I hold back this unwie
ldy truth. Because as that singular thought leaps across my taxed synapses, emotional ignoramus that I may be, I start to cry too. And so as her confounded dad watches in utter confusion, I allow my frustration with small, socially advanced Italian children to fall by the wayside, and I hug her and stroke her hair and pray to the ironic being in the sky for as many sandbox days as she or he sees fit to give us, wood touches or not.

  *Look. I know that writing about my own death is foolhardy at the worst, and just plain bad form at best. Not only am I “courting” the devil; I’m also courting the devil’s children, i.e., Internet jagoffs, those delightful vermin. I can hear the online comments now, “Thank GOD she’s ded! Good riddince to that Moe-ron! She can suk it!—Sincerely, livinginmy-momsbasement@aol.com.” On the other hand, I believe firmly in mentally tracking a horrible idea to its logical, horrible conclusion, thereby guaranteeing that it NEVER HAPPENS. And so, by this reasoning I have just guaranteed myself immortality. That’s science.

  *About big stuff. Little stuff—well, please see previous chapter.

  †As is reflected in Chapter 10 (“My Bodies, Myself”), a true story, BTW, and one that I tell at the drop of a hat, so be sure to invite me to your next cocktail gathering. Or you could just reread that chapter. But invite me to your cocktail party anyway.

  ‡ I want to be dressed in my flesh-colored Lycra bodysuit, the one with the fake nipples and pubic hair attached (you’ll find it with all my other sewing stuff). I want a big jazz band, the kind they have in New Orleans. And a parade. Also, I want my friends, the ones who have stopped talking to each other—and whose feud makes brunch planning particularly difficult—to be forced to hug. For an excruciatingly long time. Also, there should be pie.

  § This may be moot, as I believe I’ve already established my intention to remain immortal.

  twenty-five

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  The Road to Parenthood is littered with tired clichés that crawl up my rectum, fuse my spine, and embarrass me on behalf of normal-brained humans everywhere.

  “Cherish every moment.”

  This out-of-touch phrase is often uttered by the type of person who, when you dated them back in college, insisted on saving every birthday card, restaurant receipt, movie ticket, and used condom.

  “You’ll never know love until you have a child.”

  This speaker achieves the impressive feat of offending (a) anyone who doesn’t have a child and (b) all of the other people in his or her life that aren’t his or her child.

  “Parenthood is the toughest job you’ll ever love.”

  This saying has actually been co-opted from the Peace Corps, so unless you’re quoting this line while tilling a rice paddy in Myanmar, you’d best be advised to shut your First World trap.

  “Enjoy it. It goes so fast.”

  This is the in-bred granddaddy of all parenting clichés, the one that fails to acknowledge all those painfully tedious moments of parenthood in which time is not speeding but dragging like a garden slug that has just slithered through a puddle of tequila-infused molasses.

  Like sitting with your child as she takes ten minutes to sound out “Thhhhhhaaaat fffffffaaaaaaaaaat rrrrrrrraaaaaaaaat sssssssssaaaaaaaat oooooooooooooonnnnnnn thhhhhhhhhhhhhhe mmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaat . . .” (which, while an important part of a strong educational foundation, is also recognized by the CIA as a legitimate alternative to waterboarding). Or when your kid begs you to press play on her Nursery Rhymes Set to ’80s Death Metal! CD over and over and over and over until you start wondering what it would feel like to ram your car into the side of that building right there. Or when your kid is having trouble putting on her G.D. shoes but refuses to let you help her even though you’re already forty-five minutes late for a playdate at the park where the first thing she’s going to do is take off her G.D. shoes. Or when your kid loses/breaks/destroys something of yours that is special and irreplaceable.*

  Bottom line is, being a parent is not all sunshine and lollipops. Sometimes it’s sun damage and diabetes.

  It’s the first day of kindergarten. While the other parents assembled in this tiny classroom are struggling to cover their tears, I’m fighting to hide my glee.

  The past five years—watching that squirming, screaming little squid blossom into a fully formed human—have been an amazing ride. But I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t been eagerly awaiting this day and this new chapter, this chance to watch her slowly gain independence as I greedily take back some of my own.

  No longer must I fake the stomach flu just to get a precious few minutes in the bathroom alone . . . No more will I have to argue over who gets to walk the dog (“It’s my turn! Give me that friggin leash!”), or fight over whose turn it is to go grocery shopping (“You’re damn right I’m going to the store right now. We’re out of Herbes de Provence!”). Deep down in my soul lives a tiny Mel Gibson, his weird face covered in blue, his cries of “FREEEEEDOOOOM!” echoing in my head.

  Though he’s trying hard not to show it, the husband is something of a wreck. He’s always been very protective of the child, whereas I am a dedicated follower of the Cult of Benign Neglect. He still cuts her grapes into sixteenths and drenches her in sunblock with an SPF of 15,000, sunblock that is so thick, it leaves her looking like a silent-film star. Right now he is hovering over the kid and cycling through his Kindergarten Preparedness Checklist for the twentieth time today, “Do you have your hat? Are you warm enough? Do you need to pee? Where’s your hand sanitizer?”

  Finally, he releases her from his clutches. The kid stares nervously in the direction of the play area, then at us. Though every instinct is telling me to “LEAVE! FLEE! YOU’VE GOT SIX HOURS OF FREEDOM AND TIME’S A-WASTING!” I cool my jets and stand my ground, then dig into my purse, where I find an old napkin balled up at the bottom; I hold it at the ready to dry her tears. Then the kid fakes us out with a quick “BUH-BYE!” and disappears into a tiny pretend kitchen.

  Having fulfilled my duty, I make my way (trying hard not to giggle and/or skip) through the sea of still-clinging parents. One mother is weeping and squeezing her son so tightly, it seems she’s auditioning for Meryl Streep’s role in the remake of Sophie’s Choice.

  Standing in the doorway is our daughter’s new kindergarten teacher, who looks like she’s probably a very nice lady, but at the moment her polite smile is doing very little to hide her inner monologue, which I’m guessing sounds like “Hello, nice to meet you all. Now get the hell out of my classroom, you child-suffocating messes.”

  I give the teacher a quick wink-nod combo, as if to say, “Can you believe these poor saps?” She gives me a look back as if to say, “You can get the hell out too,” so I squeeze past her and the rest of the still-weeping/ loitering throng and then notice I’ve lost the husband. He’s back near the tiny kitchen, running through Kindergarten Preparedness Checklist #21 with the kid. Clearly, he needs a few more minutes—but me, I’m out.

  I exit the classroom and head out to the empty playground, where I sit at the bottom of the slide and revel in the glory of this moment.

  I’ve always thought of the job of being a parent as something between a Sherpa and a good party host; that my job is to guide her (Follow me up the mountain/to the hors d’oeuvres table), point out the sights (Look, an eagle!/the dance floor!), warn her of the dangers (Beware, that ledge/that guy is slippery/a douche), and to just try to show her a good time while not letting her fall off the mountain/get drunk and pass out on some weird dude’s lap.

  Still, I can’t help feeling that it’s a near miracle we’ve made it this far, considering the multitude of ways that things could have gone spectacularly wrong during her upbringing*—yet there she is, starting kindergarten like the normal, undamaged person that we have somehow managed to raise.

  And though this moment represents just how far we’ve come, as I close my eyes and lay back against the smooth, sun-warmed, and vaguely pee-smelling slide, my mind wanders along the path of “firsts” that are still ye
t to come:

  Today she’ll make a best friend, a sweet little girl who is polite and shy . . . and then one day she’ll have her first best-friend breakup, with that same little girl whom I’ve always secretly hated and thought was a sneaky and manipulative little creep.

  Then will come the first sleepover away from home, where she’ll stay up past midnight giggling and sneaking snacks, and where she’ll discover that not all mothers stay up late squeezing their chest pimples, Googling their ex-boyfriends, and gorging on Duncan Hines frosting from the can.