And please, don’t ever try to tell me it’s the most important job I’ll ever have as a way of trying to convince me to stay at home with my children all day.
Don’t.
I might punch you in the nose.
The most important job to a woman who has rent, has a car note, has utility bills and needs groceries is one that pays her money to keep her family alive.
Let’s stop trying to make ourselves indulge in the crappy mythological lady-cult that makes being a mother seem like work.
Staying at home with your children is an incredible choice to make. And it’s awesome and admirable if you make it. Go you.
Being a mother still happens if you don’t stay home with your kids. It still happens if you get a job and go to work. It happens if you are an Army Ranger and you’re deployed overseas and your kid is staying with your parents.
Still a mother.
Still not a job.
Working or staying home, one is still a mother.
One is not better than the other. Both choices are worthy of the same amount of respect.
Motherhood remains equally, painfully death defying and difficult either way.
It does, it does.
Let’s all put down our weapons for a minute, okay?
Perhaps you think that it is important to your child’s personal growth to bake goods in your house. More power to you, my sister. I will defend your right to bake your brownies, I will march for your right to home-bake whatever you damn well want to home-bake. But I will take off my earrings and ask someone to hold my purse for the verbal beat-down we will need to engage in if you try to tell me that I must define my motherhood in the same terms as yours.
There’s room enough for everybody here.
This is a big, big maternity tent.
If I want to buy my brownies from Costco and drop them off in a wrinkled brown paper bag still wrapped in the plastic and foil container with the orange price sticker still attached, guess what?
That’s how it’s gonna go down.
Suck it, judgies.
I am not telling you to do it that way. You go bake your ass off. But we all have to acknowledge that our way is not the way.
Did I judge your perfectly made, piping-hot, double-fudge chocolate cupcakes with the hand-whipped frosting? Did I judge the beautiful monogrammed cupcake holder with the coordinating starched apron you have on?
No, I did not.
Because you are my sister.
Also, because I am going to eat of all your cupcakes.
Look, I am devoted to my children. Deeply. But my devotion has nothing to do with home-baked goods. It has nothing to do with making any kind of public show of maternal fabulousness. Because—you know me by now—public displays of any kind of fabulousness are never going to happen for me. I am devoted to knowing my children, to reading books with them, to hearing the stories they tell me and to the conversations we have. To making them citizens of the world. To raising strong feminist human beings who love and believe in themselves. That is hard enough for me without delivering home-baked goods to school on a Friday.
I’m never going to braid anyone’s pigtails perfectly. No one’s clothes are ever going to be ironed. Clean, yes. Ironed? Not by me. We will never make special crafts for every holiday and then take photos of them to put on Pinterest and Facebook.
Ever.
Never ever.
I will always be resentful of mom activities that take place on a Tuesday at eleven a.m. As if the mothers with jobs are not valued or welcome.
And I am always going to yell “What the fuck!” at the PTA meeting if you tell me the brownies need to be homemade.
I am already in the middle of a Great Mommy War and it is against my worst enemy—me. I don’t need another war against you. I’m betting you don’t need one either.
Stacy McKee (who is one of the new head writers at Grey’s Anatomy but started out way back in the beginning as the assistant on the show) IS the kind of mom who does crafts with her kids and puts photos of them up on Pinterest and Instagram. She works long, hard hours but still, you go into her office and as she’s talking scripts and story, she’s hot-gluing beads onto a princess cape for her daughter. I always furrow my brow and ask her why the hell she is doing this. Why? Or why the hell is she delicately hand-painting vistas onto Easter eggs? Or why is she doing any number of crazy amazing crafty things Stacy does for her kids? For the love of wine, why?
Stacy will furrow her brow back at me, equally confused.
“Why wouldn’t I?” she says.
See, Stacy LOVES doing this stuff. She’d probably do it even if she didn’t have kids. Oh wait. I knew her back when she didn’t have kids and she WAS doing it. Stacy once spent days making incredibly lifelike renderings of all the Grey’s Anatomy characters out of pipe cleaners.
PIPE CLEANERS.
So it’s not about working moms vs. nonworking moms. It’s about people who love hot-gluing beads on capes vs. people who do not know what a hot-glue gun is.
And it’s not even that.
It’s about the non–glue gun people not assuming the glue gun people are judging them, and vice versa. Maybe don’t start out with your weapons raised. Maybe that Perfect PTA Mom didn’t even realize that homemade brownies could be a hardship. Maybe instead of yelling obscenities at the mention of homemade brownies, it would be better to stand up and gently point out that not everyone has the time or the bandwidth to make brownies.
And if you are met with condescension, then yell the obscenities.
This year, at Emerson’s new preschool, I was in charge of the cake for the end-of-the-year party. I got lucky and found a bakery that can reproduce photos on a cake. I don’t know how they do it and I don’t care. I ordered from the bakery and showed up at the party with my awesome store-bought cake. Every child’s face smiling out of the frosting. Everyone oohed and aahed. I felt victorious. In a sick, competitive, not-allowed-to-play-Scrabble, kicked-off-of-team-sports maternal fabulousness kind of way. And then someone asked me where the cake cutter was.
I brought the cake.
I did not bring anything with which to cut the cake. Or plates on which to eat the cake. Or any utensils.
At the other school, this might have been an international incident for me. Things might have escalated to nuclear levels. Arsenals would have been emptied.
But now, at this school?
I said, “Um, the cake is sooo pretty.”
And I got a laugh. A friendly laugh.
Then someone grinned and said, “No big deal. I have some cake-cutting stuff!”
And everyone just moved on. Cake was served. Cake was consumed. Everyone copied down the name of the bakery off the side of the box. That was that.
These moms leave no mom behind.
I love it here.
I don’t think they are different from the moms at the other school. It is that I am different. All the moms were great all along. I just couldn’t see it. Now, I’m no longer looking for the enemy. So I no longer see the enemy.
And so finally, in this year, I allow myself to fully lay down my weapons.
When a reporter flicks on that recorder, smiles and asks the Big Questions, I do not call in the troops. I do not raise my shields.
I allow myself to be seen.
“How do you manage work and home? What tips do you have for working moms? What is your secret to finding balance in a busy world?”
Yes, I can answer now.
No hot-glue gun.
No home-baked goods.
No late-night laundry.
Leave no mom behind.
“Jenny McCarthy. To do it all, I have Jenny McCarthy.”
I feel really good.
Of course, the reporter walks away deeply confused as to why Jenny McCarthy seems to figure so prominently in my life.
But I don’t care.
I wave the white flag.
There is victory in surrender.
Curling ir
ons down, my sisters.
The Mommy War has ended.
7
Yes to All Play and No Work
As the Year of Yes began to really go forward, something happened.
I got busier.
And busier.
And busier.
The more I said yes to things that challenged me, the more I had to leave the house. Saying yes had turned little cocooned me into a big social butterfly.
I flew to New York to see Kerry Washington guest-host Saturday Night Live. I went to the private parties of incredibly interesting people. I threw a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee. I helped host charity events. There were a lot of awards that year because now there was not only one show starring a black woman on Thursday night—there were two. And all three shows on Thursday were from Shondaland. My publicist, Chris, was smartly taking advantage of the fact that I was saying yes and booking as many interviews as he could squeeze into my schedule. I did my first Good Morning America interview with Robin Roberts. I went with the cast of Scandal to The View. I was photographed by Annie Leibovitz. I did a live interview in front of an audience at the Smithsonian. I felt like I was everywhere.
And I was. Everywhere, it seemed, but at home.
Which makes sense. All the things that would challenge me happened outside my home. Inside my home? Doing just fine.
At least I thought I was.
I mean, I was still a hot-mess mama. I was still working too much. I still needed Jenny McCarthy to nanny both the kids and me. I still needed help. I still wasn’t getting enough sleep.
But I really thought I was doing fine.
Except I started to feel . . . irrelevant.
In my own home.
I’d come home and Emerson and Beckett would glance my way, give me a nod and then continue playing. Like I was the nice neighbor lady visiting from next door. Or Harper would eye me with disdain when I asked her which friend she was talking about and I’d realize I had missed a whole week’s worth of discussions—a lifetime in tween years.
And then I hit an emotional wall.
One night I was all dressed up in a ball gown, hair and makeup done perfectly, borrowed diamonds shimmering on my neck and wrists. Ready to head out to some event that I had said yes to. And as I walked through the foyer to the front door, my daughter Emerson came rushing toward me.
“MAMA!!” she was hollering, sticky hands outstretched. “Wanna play?”
For a split second, it felt like time froze. Like in one of those action movies where everything goes into slow motion, then spins around—just before the hero dude (because somehow in the time-freezing, slow-mo, spin-around movies it is ALWAYS a dude) kicks someone’s ass. But there’s Emerson, her one curly tuft of hair bound into a valiant attempt at a ponytail on the top of her head in a way that makes her look like Tweety Bird. She’s frozen, then moving toward me in slow motion, and then the whole room is spinning around and I can see myself: the blue ball gown, the sticky hands, the child hurtling through space toward me.
She’s asked me a question.
“Wanna play?”
I’m late. I’m perfectly, elegantly dressed. Carolina Herrera made this gown. The shoes I’m wearing are some kind of navy lace that I find extremely painful, but damn, they look good on me. When I step out onto the stage, the speech I’ve written for this particular evening in tribute to a friend is funny and vibrant and moving. I know it will be a special moment, something the town will probably talk about the next day. My phone keeps buzzing repeatedly. It’s Chris, my publicist. I really should be arriving just about now. But . . .
“Wanna play?”
There’s that round face. Big hopeful eyes. She’s got cupid-red lips.
I could bend down, grab her hands in mine before she touches me. Give her a soft kiss and tell her, “No. No, Mama has to go, Mama can’t be late.”
I could.
I’d be well within my rights. It wouldn’t be unheard-of. It would be okay. She’d understand.
But in this frozen moment, I’m realizing something.
She didn’t call me “Honey.”
She’s not calling everyone “Honey” anymore.
She’s changing. Right before my eyes. The baby who was on my hip that last Thanksgiving is going to be three years old on her next birthday.
I’m missing it.
And if I’m not careful, she’s going to see the back of my head heading out the door more than she’ll see my face.
So in that split second, everything changes.
I kick off my painful high heels. I drop to my knees on the hardwood floor, making the ball gown pouf up around my waist like some kind of navy confection. It’s going to wrinkle. I don’t care.
“Wanna play?” she’s asked.
“YES,” I say. “Yes, I do.”
And I grab those sticky hands in mine and Emerson plops herself down into my lap, laughing as the gown flies up around her.
When I arrive at the venue, fifteen minutes late, the navy ball gown is hopelessly wrinkled and I’m carrying my heels in my hand. But I don’t care—there’s a hot pearl of joy in my chest that is warming me in a way I’d forgotten was possible. That little fire inside of me has been reignited. Like magic.
Let’s not get carried away.
It’s just love. That’s all it is.
We played. Emerson and I. And we were joined by Beckett and then later Harper. There was a lot of laughing. I gave my best reading of the finest book ever written—Everyone Poops. There may have been some dancing and singing to a made-up funky disco version of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”
There were sticky kisses. Beckett jammed her finger into my nose out of curiosity. Emerson put her head against my chest and listened until she heard my heart. Then she looked at me solemnly. “You are still alive.”
Yes, I am.
Days like this, I am still alive.
We finished with our daily performance of that damned gorgeous song Idina Menzel sings in Frozen that has some sort of Pied Piper magical hold on all children. Then I got in the car to go to the event. Happy. That warm joy in me. Feeling fundamentally changed. Like I knew a secret that very few people get to learn.
But really, it was just love. That’s no secret.
It’s just something we forget.
We could all use a little more love.
A lot more love.
I am not a naturally optimistic person. I’m too in my own head to be a constant source of cheer. I have to work at happy. Dark and twisty is where my brain likes to settle. So I can use some reminders of what is good and optimistic and glass-half-full about this world. And nothing does that for me like the faces and souls of my tiny humans.
yesyesyes
That night, I come home and engage in what I call the Hollywood Single Mom part of my evening, which involves my forcing the nearest awake human over four feet tall to free me from whatever dress and undergarment contraptions my glam team trapped me in hours before. There have been times in New York where the task has fallen upon a very nice hotel maid. A couple of times, actors from my shows have saved me. Once in Martha’s Vineyard, I was forced to ask the very proper older gentleman who was my driver for the afternoon.
(Are you judging? I see that look on your face. Uh-uh. What did I say at the beginning of this book? Well, you are definitely not gonna come up here all the way in the middle of this book and judge me. It was either ask or spend the entire night sleeping in a white cocktail dress.)
This time, thankfully, I can ask my babysitter. There’s a corset involved, and as soon as there’s air flowing back into all parts of my lungs, I pull on a robe and go stick my face around doorways to peek at my sleeping kids.
Staring at each of my girls, I make a decision.
Whenever Emerson or Beckett or Harper (in her own way) asks, “Wanna play?”
I am always going to answer: YES.
Always.
Because if I have to have a dress remove
d by a stranger, I should at least get to do something I enjoy. I should at least get to see that happy look on their faces.
Get a little more love.
And so that’s what I do.
I actually do it.
Wanna play?
From now on, the answer is always yes.
I drop whatever I am doing and I go to my children and I play.
It’s a rule. No. I’ve made it more than a rule. I’ve made it law. Canon. Text. It’s a religion. There’s a strict obedience to it. Something that I practice. With fervor.
Imperfectly.
But faithfully.
Unquestioningly.
Making it such a steadfast rule allows me to peel away some of the work pressure I put on myself. To know that I “don’t have a choice” means that I don’t feel any guilt stepping away from my workaholic tendencies. I feel no remorse dumping my purse and coat on the floor just as I’m walking out the door to head to the office when I hear those two magic words—wanna play? Those two words have me out of my shoes and sitting at the tiny pink tea table coloring a bunny or playing with the unfortunate one-eyed baby doll or staring at lizards in the garden in an instant.
It’s hard to nail down a tween—if you have one, you know what I mean. I vividly remember being twelve years old. I sometimes wonder how my parents allowed me to survive. At that age, the existence of one’s parents is nothing more than an embarrassment. Clearly a twelve-year-old is never going to say “Wanna play?” But with Harper, I’ve learned to look for the words and signs that mean the same thing. If she wanders into my room in the evening and lies down on any piece of my furniture, I put down what I’m working on and give her my full attention. Sometimes that pays off. Sometimes it doesn’t. But what I’ve come to understand is that letting her know my full attention is available is more important than anything else.
Also? I have discovered something about this tall, gangly girl I love so much that sometimes she has to say “Please stop hugging me” so I will stop: I really like her.
She’s interesting.
I’m discovering her. She’s like an endless mystery. I can’t wait to see how she’s going to turn out.
Year of Yes Page 9