I would be the first to admit
that I am doing what is without a doubt my most important life’s work—as a dad
to the two crazy and crazy cute young dudes pictured above—in near-ideal
conditions. However you slice it, from past role models to present support from
family and friends, economic security to good health, neighborhood and
community to (at least when it comes to something like mixed-race identity) a very
tolerant and open-minded historical era and time period, I can’t imagine there
being more positive influences on my ability to be a good dad (don’t worry, I’m
knocking on wood while typing all that). And still, it’s hard. It’s hard especially on two distinct and crucial levels: on
its own terms, it’s hard to feel day in and day out like I’m doing everything I
can do for and with them, to prepare them for the best and happiest and most
successful futures and lives; and in a broader context, it’s hard much of the
time to feel as if I’m balancing out parenting and my career in ways that are
mutually productive. And I don’t think those things are even vaguely
distinctive for me—quite the opposite, I think they’re indications of just how
hard these questions are for everybody.
But of course the reality is that
these questions are much, much harder for a great many Americans. If even one
of those positive influences that I listed above is replaced with a negative
one—if one doesn’t have much familial or social support, if one’s financial
situation is unstable or disadvantaged or bleak, if health issues become
prominent, if one’s community is dangerous or threatening, and so on—the
difficulties increase exponentially. And if multiple or even most of the
influences become negative, if in fact being a good parent becomes an effort to
rise above (rather than, in my case, to live up to) all of what surrounds
one—as, I believe, is the case for many of the impoverished families and
parents with whom my
Mom works in a Head Start-like program in Central Virginia (although she
and that program are, just to be clear, one
extremely positive influence in their worlds)—well, I can’t even imagine
how difficult it becomes at that point. And yet, as if so often the case, a
singular and singularly amazing work of American literature allows me to
imagine, even in a small way, what it feels like to be in that situation, to
try to parent well, or even perhaps just to parent at all, in the face of most every
single factor and influence and aspect of one’s situation.
That work is “I Stand
Here Ironing,” a short story by Tillie
Olsen. Olsen spent the first half of her life living with these questions,
as a working single mother who was trying both to be a good parent and to find
time or space to hone her considerable talents as a creative and critical
writer; when she finally achieved success, with the book of short stories Tell
Me a Riddle (1961) that featured
“Ironing,” she spent the second half of her life writing about (among many
other things) precisely these questions, such as in the unique and important
scholarly study Silences (1978) which traces the effects of
work and parenthood on women writers in a variety of nations and time periods.
Yet I don’t think she ever captured these themes more evocatively or perfectly
than in “Ironing,” a brief story in which a mother imagines—while performing
the titular act of housework—how she might describe her relationship to her
oldest and most troubled daughter (named Emily) to a school official who has
asked her to do so. Although the narrator is now in a more stable situation,
the first years of her daughter’s life comprised her lowest point in every
sense, and for much of the story she reflects with sadness and regret and pain
on all that she was not able to offer and give to and be for her daughter
during those years. But she comes at the end to a final vision of her now
teenage daughter that is, while by no means idealistic or naïve, a recognition
that Emily is becoming her own person, that she is strong and independent, and
that she has the opportunity to carve out a life that, at the very least, can
go far beyond where it began.
It’s a beautiful and powerful
story, and a very complex one, not least because no parent can read it with the
perspective of simply a literary critic or a distanced reader in any sense. It
pushes us up against the most difficult aspects of this role, makes clear how
much more difficult still they can be than most of us (fortunately) will ever
know, and then finally reminds us of the absolutely unalterable and singular
and crucial meanings of what is, again, the most important thing we’ll ever do.
Word to your mother.
More next week,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Any great
works about mothers to highlight?
5/12 Memory Day nominee: George Carlin, who to my
mind rivals only Mark Twain when it comes to American
humorists whose voices, perspectives,
and ideas have been hugely
influential in satirizing, critiquing,
reflecting, and engaging with our society and culture.
5/13
Memory Day nominees: A tie between two unique and talented American musical
artists with very different stories and arcs: Ritchie Valens and Stevie Wonder.
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