The End of Motherhood?

do children have a right to privacy?

I've been meaning to revisit this discussion and thought we might start it up again by asking you for your reactions to this.

In particular, I am curious to know if any ideas or feelings come up with regards the concept of privacy and what the notion of privacy means between parent and child.  In short, do our children have a right to privacy even, perhaps especially, in regards to their parents?

I have been thinking quite a bit about this whole idea - I think coming up against it is what caused my recent bout of blog paralysis - and will share my ideas tomorrow.  But first, what do you think?

I think I may have overstated how good I am at climbing trees...

Via Everybody Knows.

in which Oldest is outraged...again.

When Oldest returned from his job as a camp counselor to four and five-year-olds ("They are not human beings. They are CREATURES!") he found me smashing bananas and shredding bittersweet chocolate.

"What are you making?"

"Chocolate Banana Bread to send to Youngest.  I need to get it to him before his cabin leaves for their two week trip on the Allagash."

"What?  You are making him banana bread?  You've never sent me any home-baked goods!"

I didn't say anything right away. I was too busy creating a long mental list of all the many care packages I have sent that boy's way.  But of course he is right.  For some reason, the prospect of my son spending weeks at camp in Maine seems to lend itself to the creation of home made sweets while months in college send me shopping for specialty salamis, Sees candy and clothing.

Never think your children are not keeping score.  Not for one minute.

it's OK for them to change, but God forbid ya buy a box of Wheaties...

Oldest, the keeper of tradition, the enforcer of the old order, has returned from college for the summer.  He stands stands in front of the pantry, staring at our cereal choices.  He is displeased with the state of the offerings.

"Why do we have Wheaties?" he asks, his question tinged with outrage. "We never have Wheaties."

My silence was clearly not the response he was looking for so he took his outrage up a notch.

"Whose cracked-out idea was it to buy Wheaties?"

He grabs the box and heads to the fridge for the milk.  As he opens the door, he adds bitterly, "those Organic Grape Nuts are no good either."

better late than never...

I've been waiting, hoping, and wishing for something, some piece of news so resonant and true that it would propel me out of my non-posting stupor and get me blogging again.

Voila.

You know what they say about clouds?

Maybe I should be glad my kids text so much.

seeds of doubt

So a while back, one of you asked me if my kids read my blog.  Dutifully, I went and asked them and they all answered with some version of a resounding, "Uh, NO!"  I believed them and that was that.

But the other day, I got an invitation from Middle to a presentation he was giving for his history class.  And he signed the card, not with his name, but with "Middle."

The thing is, I don't call him Middle in real life - only here, in blog life.  Suddenly, I found myself wondering, is he reading these here scratchings?  And what if he is?

Well, first off, if he lied to me about not reading the blog (which I doubt) I would be disappointed.  I always expect my kids to tell me the truth and have on a few occasions felt compelled to tell each one in turn that I only know how to mother children that I trust and if I can't trust them, I'm not going to know how to mother them and we are all going to be in for a very nasty ride.  So really, could they please do us all a favor and remain trustworthy?  And with the exception of a few little glitches, they have done just that. (It helps that I have a truly uncanny ability to know when they are lying. They each have such a cute tell.)

But I digress.  It is of course also possible that Middle started reading the blog after I asked him if he read it in which case I need to ask him again.  And I will. 

But in the meantime, I had a post I was going to write today.  It was about Middle and trust me, it would have been funny and sweet and explain who he is right at this moment: a drop-dead gorgeous jock who retains just enough nerd to make him impossibly endearing.

But I don't feel like I can tell the story because I realize that if he read it, he might be embarrassed by it.  He might not want total strangers imagining what it was like in his math class, when the teacher made a math joke - a math joke! - and my Middle laughed heartily while his classmates stared blankly, not getting it. Not getting it at all.  And who knows, some of the other kids involved might read it - and then what?  I remember, oh how I remember, the infinite black hole of high school shame.

So now I feel oddly hamstrung.  Much as I want to tell the story, I can't - or won't. 

Instead, I am going to throw out to you all the questions I have been pondering. I think they are important ones for us blogging mothers and fathers to be asking ourselves:  How much of my children's lives is it appropriate for me to scatter like seeds into the blogosphere?  Am I somehow abdicating my primary job as Middle's mom if I use his life - even in a loving way - for what is fundamentally my own purposes?  Isn't it possible that the act of blogging about my children at all - or featuring them in a post the way I would have with this story - is a kind of exploitation?

Do you ever ask yourself these questions and if you do, how do you answer?

What's your Most Played?

Because I have - clearly - been doing pretty much anything other than blogging, I was playing around in my iPod library this morning when I randomly clicked on the "Most Played" column.

I was genuinely, seriously, shockingly surprised that the clear winner was....drum roll please:

Natalie Merchant's cover of Neil Young's After the Gold Rush.

I hunted around for a video of her singing it but alas, there was none. There was, however, this version of the man himself singing it:

And then I found this kinda-sorta-maybe-related little gem.  Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe singing one of my favorite John Prine songs...


With luck, I'll be back with our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, but in the meantime, what's your "most played?"

love, teenage style

Here is the card I received yesterday from Youngest. 

Over the years, each of my boys has given me a card with some version of the caveat Youngest included here. Each boy (in his turn and luckily not in the same year), has used Mother's Day to acknowledge the  strain that his teenagerdom has put on our relationship. Youngest loves me and knows that he has not necessarily been acting in the most loving way lately.  I think this awareness that love involves responsibility is actually a huge developmental milestone scrawled on a piece of hotel notepaper.

And not only that, I got a backscratch out of it too. 

If this weren't a G-rated blog, this would be The Food Porn Meme...

(un)relaxeddad, that devil, tagged me with the "Food Porn Meme" which I have to say I am - after a brief bout of cursing him under my breath - grateful for because creativity seems to have gone decidedly by the wayside in recent days.  And because this is, after all, about sex, I am inviting my Mate to, uh, help me out.

1. What food do you consider the best “date” food? In other words, what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?
Mate: Doesn't matter what the food is as long as you are feeding each other. Okay. Caviar.

(And really good champagne.)

2.What well-known person would you like to share a meal with?
Scarlett Johansson

(Excuse the editorializing but, ewwww)

3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers? Hot tub? Dancing girls?)
I hate breakfast in bed.

(We both hate breakfast in bed - one of many reasons we are still together after, eek, 27 years.)

4.What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?
I have an answer but wife tells me this is a g-rated blog.

(We'll get back to you on this one.)

5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar? Smoked Salmon? Truffles? Chocolate? Or something else?
I wouldn't get any luxury foods - in that situation, you've got to prevent scurvy for God's sake.  So I'd gather up all the oranges, lemons and limes and save the women and children.

(Is that man hot, or what?)

For those  intrepid enough to take this on...This Meme was started by a self-described "modern day recluse." I guess that makes sense.

The Rules…
“Answer each of the five questions. Tag five bloggers you would like to pass the meme to. Have them link back to you and to this post as the source meme. You and they can take the graphic from here if they like.”

Ok, now to tag...eenie, meenie, minee, moe...
Robin, because she this may be her first meme.
neurotic parent, because she can focus on herself for once
Mizmell, because now that finals are over, she has the time
Jennifer H, because she is brave enough to take it out for a spin
Mindful Mom, because we have to get out of our minds now and then, right?