These days, I try, in my own small way, to be a corrective to the culture that makes women feel like they’re disgraces if they can’t do it all by themselves, to the magazines stuffed with shots of celebrities where the kids and mom are all clean and perfectly clothed and coiffed and there’s never a nanny or paid caregiver in sight. Whenever people ask about the work-life balance, or how to manage a writing career with motherhood—and, unlike male authors with young children, I get asked about it all the time—I don’t lie. “I have a ton of help,” I tell them. I say that I’m very lucky to be paid well for what I do, and that the money allows me to pay people well to do the things I don’t want to do—the housework, the laundry, the grocery shopping—so that I can spend my time either working or being with my girls.
When Lucy was six weeks old, I was sitting cross-legged in my bed, with the baby arranged on a pillow on my left thigh, my instruction sheet on my right thigh, and my glasses slipping down my nose. As my mother regarded me dubiously, I stuck the silicone nipple shield on my breast, lifted Lucy’s head, then tried to line up breast and baby and nipple shield. The trick was getting Lucy to latch on before the shield fell off, a feat I couldn’t manage without either a doula or extra arms. The baby was crying. I was crying. My mother left the room, went to the kitchen, and poured me a glass of Manischewitz, a sweet kosher wine that is, along with fruity mixed drinks, the only kind of alcohol I can tolerate. “Drink this,” she instructed. I drank. She looked at me and said the words I will never forget, the ones I tell to any new mother who asks me, the ones I’ll repeat to my own daughters, if they have kids. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she told me. “It just needs to be good enough.”
My mother did her best, and I am, for the most part, okay. I did my best, and it seems to be working . . . and if my brilliant, intense older daughter or my sweet, sunny younger one become mothers, whatever they do will be good enough, too. I only hope they won’t beat themselves up the way I did, won’t read a dozen different parenting books and try to adhere to the advice of each one. I hope they’ll know, whether they nurse or don’t nurse, work or don’t work, co-sleep or baby-wear or not, that their children will grow up and walk and talk and love them. I hope they’ll listen (but do any daughters listen to their mothers?) when I tell them that loving your baby is the most important thing and that, as the Talmud says, all the rest is commentary.
* * *
I. Holding an ice cube in no way resembles the pain of delivering a baby.
Never Breastfeed in a Sweater Dress, and Other Parenting Tips I Learned the Hard Way
DO NOT hate yourself if you need an epidural, if your baby needs formula, if you need a break. The object is survival and the two of you getting out alive and intact. Whatever it takes to make that happen is fine.
DO always check the diaper bag before you leave the house, and bring more diapers and clothes than you think you’ll need.
DO NOT wear a sweater dress while breastfeeding. Seriously. Do not.
DO keep baby nail clippers in the car, so that when your baby falls asleep in her car seat (thus totally blowing her nap), you can at least get a few nails clipped.
DO bring earplugs when flying with a baby, as well as a small gift for the flight attendant and drink coupons for anyone stuck in the blast zone if a meltdown occurs. Remember—it’s nice to appease fellow passengers, but the flight attendants are the ones you really need on your side.
DO NOT judge the mom with the screaming baby on the plane. Chances are she’s already mortified and miserable, and unless she somehow snuck aboard your private jet, you agreed to take your chances when you got your ticket. Buy yourself a drink—and maybe offer her one, too. Put in your headphones. Deal.
DO understand that near-sightedness can be a gift. If you can’t hire a full-time housekeeper, you can forgo the Lasik surgery and regularly wearing your glasses and/or contacts so that your entire life looks like a soft-focus Monet blur and you don’t really see the dust. Or you can decide that no woman on her deathbed ever looked up at her loved ones and croaked out, “I wish I’d wiped down the floorboards.”
DO NOT try to do it all yourself. Don’t be a martyr. Don’t stand when you can sit, don’t sit when you can lie down, take a nap whenever possible, and take whatever help you’re offered.
DO know that any bra can be a nursing bra, any top can be a nursing top, any stroller can be a jogging stroller, and any kid’s party can be a drop-off party, if you have the courage of your convictions.
DO NOT be picky. One of my relatives was great about offering to help with my daughters, but I worried that she was too rough with them and that she wasn’t following my explicit instructions about naps. One of the playgroup facilitators told me, “Your daughter is going to meet all kinds of people in her life, and they’re going to treat her all kinds of ways. By letting this relative spend time with Lucy, you’re teaching your daughter to learn to get along with people who aren’t just like you, and to be her own advocate . . . and that’s a gift.” Obviously, don’t entrust your kids to caregivers who are abusive or cruel, but different? Different is okay.
DO keep it in perspective. At the end of the day, these are #firstworldproblems. You and your baby are not wanting for clean water, electricity, or medication.
DO be prepared for the inevitable moment when your child sounds like a spoiled monster. When Lucy was three, I signed us up for swimming lessons at the gym in Philadelphia’s gay neighborhood, and was mortified when Lu refused to get in the water. “I don’t like this pool! I only want to swim in Provincetown!” she wailed. The handsome man swimming laps in the next lane popped his head out of the water and looked at Lucy sympathetically. “Oh, I hear that, Mary,” he said.
DO NOT be surprised when the instant your kid pulls off her socks on a thirty-degree day, or you give her a sip of your iced coffee, or you hand her your iPhone to play with, someone will appear out of nowhere to judge you.
DO NOT give a new mom cute baby clothes or baby toys. She probably has enough of both. Hire someone to clean her house, or go over and tell her you’re doing her laundry and do not take no for an answer. She will thank you in her prayers.
DO NOT be fooled. All of those celebrity moms who won’t shut up about how “hands-on” they are, or how they’d never hire a nanny? Well, maybe they don’t have nannies, but they do have an armada of assistants . . . or a live-in grandmother . . . or a sister, or a spouse who is picking up the slack. At the very least, they had people who helped them look good in those pictures.
DO tell the truth. There’s still a lot of stigma around needing help and not doing it all yourself. I know it can feel shameful to talk about your nanny or sitter or how your own mother moved in with you for three months after your baby was born. Say it anyhow. Own it. You’ll make it that much less painful for the next mom who ends up putting her kid in day care, or leaving the baby with Grandma for the night, or the weekend, or the week.
DO let your husband or partner help. Even if they’re doing it all wrong. Even if they put the diaper on backward. Good enough is fine.
DO NOT attempt to use your kids to heal your own childhood wounds. As someone whose mother was indifferent to fashion, I was dying to give Lucy a beautiful wardrobe of brand-new clothes . . . but as soon as she was old enough to express an opinion, she made it clear that all she wanted to wear was navy-blue elastic-waist Lands’ End yoga pants and T-shirts with “no words.” That was it. That was all. Those sparkly, miniature lavender fleece-lined UGGs, tulle tutus, and sweet little pearl-buttoned cardigans? That was my dream. Not hers. I made peace with a child who wanted to dress like an eighties aerobics instructor and let it go.
DO take every chance you get to tell stories about your kids when they were babies, especially ones involving nudity or excretion. Thus the tale of the day I brought eighteen-month-old Phoebe to Starbucks for story time. I was waiting for my coffee when Phoebe stood in front of the window, bracing her hands on the glass. As her face reddened
and an unmistakable smell filled the air, an older lady approached. “Oh, look at you! Aren’t you pretty?” she crooned. “What’s your name?” “POOPING!” Phoebe grunted.
DO understand that, when all is said and done, your kids are going to find something to blame you for, no matter how hard you try, and that they will grow up to be who they were destined to be, no matter what you do. A large part of this is out of your hands. Try your best, treat yourself well, and forgive yourself as frequently as possible.
Nanna on the Silver Screen
Different writers have, I imagine, different reactions the day the phone rings and it’s someone—a publisher, an agent, a manager, or in my case, my brother-slash-manager—saying, “They’re going to turn your book into a movie.” Some writers probably think of the money or the acclaim, or how a film will secure their place in the canon or on the bestseller list. Some might dream of themselves in the audience at the Oscars, or walking the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere, or becoming BFFs with the stars. I had a different dream. What I wanted—all I wanted—was to be, for once in my life, the number one grandchild, at the top of the eight-grandkid heap, secure in my Nanna’s affection
My second book, In Her Shoes, had been optioned shortly after its publication. I cashed the check and tried to forget about the possibility of an actual film because I knew, from my stint as a reporter covering the world of entertainment, and also from my brother, who was starting his own career as a movie producer, that the odds weren’t in my favor. Most books that get published never get optioned; most books that are optioned never get turned into movies. Smart writers, I’d been instructed, take the money and get on with it.
I permitted myself maybe a single afternoon of Hollywood daydreams, banked the check, got pregnant, settled more deeply into my life in Philadelphia, and started writing something new.
Every once in a while, my brother Jake, who’d brokered the film deal, would call with an encouraging update. They want to get Susannah Grant to write the screenplay, he told me one afternoon when I was writing in my bedroom, with Wendell perched on the arm of the big chair where I worked.
“That’s great,” I said. Susannah Grant had written the screenplay for Ever After, a Cinderella update that I’d loved, and was one of the credited writers on Erin Brockovich, which had won Julia Roberts her Oscar. But even after Susannah Grant’s services had been secured and she turned in her first draft, I was dubious. The script was brilliant—so good that there were choices that Grant made or details she’d added that I wished I’d thought to put in the novel. Still, I knew that a great screenplay could be a great beginning or the end of the road; that the executives who fell in love with the project can get fired, the director who was so hot to do the film can get busy or distracted; that the two potential leads don’t have the same two months free. For a book to actually become a movie, the stars must align in a rare and perfect way . . . but, in my case, they kept lining up.
“They’re asking Curtis Hanson to direct,” Jake said.
“Fantastic.” I had loved L.A. Confidential, and loved Wonder Boys even more, but I was six months pregnant by then, unwilling to get distracted by big-screen chatter as I tried to find the best doula in town and figure out whether she was available on my due date.
It wasn’t until Jake told me that Cameron Diaz was interested in playing Maggie, the flighty party girl whose beauty hasn’t kept her from feeling like she grew up, stunted, in her smart big sister’s shadow, that I let myself think that it might be real. By the time I got The Call—the one announcing the first day of principal photography, which triggers the payment of the second part of the option fee, and which, more important, means that a movie is actually going to happen—I was six weeks postpartum, bloated and sleep-deprived and too tired to think of anything except how, finally, I was going to achieve one of my major life goals. Finally, I was going to get to be the number one grandchild.
The first thing I did was make one of the rare mentally healthy decisions of my life. I told the story I wanted to tell in the book, I told myself. It’s there, and no one can change a word of it. I had my chance to tell Rose and Maggie’s story. The movie is going to be the filmmakers’ chance, their chance to tell the story their way.
I decided that if they asked for my input, I’d give it . . . but I wouldn’t try to force it on them. If there were changes in the script that gave me pause, casting that I found problematic, bad wardrobe, bad music, bad whatever that led up to a bad movie, I’d just tell myself that the book was still the book, and that even a terrible movie might make more people want to read it.
The second thing I did was to call Nanna.
“Nanna!” I said. “You know how they’re turning In Her Shoes into a movie?”
Nanna allowed as to how, indeed, she’d heard the news.
“Well! They’re going to be shooting parts of it in Florida! And I’m wondering if you’d like to be an extra!”
Nanna, who was almost ninety at the time, paused. “Jenny,” she began, “I’m not much of an actress.”
“Oh, no. You don’t have to say anything. You just have to be there.”
Another pause. I held my breath. “I’ll think about it,” she finally said.
I’ll think about it?
I was surprised, to put it mildly. If someone asked me to be in a movie, I would do it. If it was Rachel, Ronnie, Michael, or Stevie, I figured, Nanna would be in the movie, no questions asked. “Damn lesbian mother ruining everything,” I told Molly, who had joined our brothers in L.A. by then and was mostly concerned about making her own on-camera appearance.
The next morning, Nanna called with the good news. “I’ll do it!” she said.
At which point I got to learn an inconvenient truth about Hollywood: unless you’ve made special contractual arrangements, or are Philip Roth, or a writer who’s a much bigger deal than I am, you do not get to dictate any aspect of the casting. Which meant that I got to enjoy some next-level begging, calling everyone I knew associated with the film and trying to make my case. Please, it’s my Nanna, and she’s almost ninety years old, and if she could just appear on-screen for a minute I’d be so grateful and so happy, because I really just want to be the number one grandchild, except it’s never going to happen because my mom came out of the closet and she had this awful girlfriend who sounded like Marge Simpson’s sisters, and . . .
Okay, okay, someone finally told me. Nanna’s in.
Molly shot her scene first, on a soundstage in L.A., where she played a secretary in Rose Feller’s law firm. When the filmmakers asked if I wanted to be an extra, Molly told me to go for it. “It’s really fun!” she promised. “And it’s your book! You should be a part of it!” The night before I was set to report to the street in Philadelphia where they were shooting, Molly called with her expert counsel. “Okay, do NOT do your hair and makeup. They’ll have people who do that, and if you go in all made up they’ll just have to wash it off your face.”
Excellent, I thought. To this day, I am famously inept with makeup. I never got the hang of eyeliner, either crayon or liquid or liquid-to-powder or gel; never mastered the application of fake lashes to augment my own stubby ones; I never knew, until I was an embarrassing way into my twenties, that you were supposed to do something with your eyebrows other than lament their failure to resemble the tidy arches you saw in magazines. I can do lip stuff—lip balm, lip gloss, even, if I’m very careful, lipstick. Other than that, I’m lost . . . so, I was glad and relieved that the movie would offer professional help.
Early the next morning, I found myself standing in an empty Mexican restaurant, hair uncombed, face bare, in a throng of perhaps two hundred Philadelphians, looking around in vain for hair and makeup assistance. Of which there appeared to be none. Even though it was three in the morning, her time, I called my sister. “Molly!” I hissed. “There’s no hair and makeup here!”
“Oh,” she yawned. “Well, maybe that’s because I was a featured extra and you’re just
background.”
Thus, in what will probably be the only book-to-film adaptation of my work, you can see me for a span of ten seconds, walking alongside my agent, looking like a naked mole rat who’s just wandered in from a windstorm. Joanna and I are strolling behind Toni Collette and Brooke Smith in the Italian Market scene. We’re carrying shopping bags. Between takes, we discussed our motivation. I decided that we were shopping for broccoli and we were going to make broccoli soup for a crowd of our vegan friends, then concentrated on making Joanna, who was, at the time, between homes, break character. “Joanna!” I said as the cameras rolled, “when we met all those years ago, did you ever imagine that you’d be living in a van down by the river?”
Then it was time to fly to Florida for Nanna’s feature film debut.
It started like the coming-out-of-the-closet trip. I got off the plane and into the humidity, this time without my sister but with baby Lucy in tow. Fran and Nanna were in Nanna’s Camry at the curb. By six o’clock, the baby and I were stowed in the backseat, and the complaining commenced. “Do you know what time my call is?” Nanna demanded. “They want me on set at six a.m.!”
Part of me was bemused to hear my grandmother, who’d lived her entire life in Detroit and its suburbs and then in a retirement community outside of Fort Lauderdale, dropping the Hollywood lingo like she was the reincarnation of Army Archerd. I was also amused by her objection to the early-morning obligation, given that Nanna does not sleep. I know this because years ago my sister and I went on a Carnival Cruise with Nanna. In a berth that felt about as large as an airplane lavatory, Molly and I would lie on our bunk beds and listen as, at four-thirty in the morning (sometimes five), Nanna began the day’s activities: moving her belongings from one crinkly plastic bag to another while conversing with her late husband, Herman, in Yiddish.
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