By grace of my abiding ignorance
And the myth of making your own childcare "village"
On living with three male nerds:
Me: “What’s your favorite mushroom?” Moses: “I would probably have to say polypores.” Guion (under his breath): “Typical. Only like the most common group of fungi…”
Moses has migrated from singing at night to requesting either (a) mini-lessons in Portuguese (blame Guion) or (b) synonym quizzes (blame me).
Felix has cultivated a real obsession with Richard Scarry, which seems like the next natural stage of development for all male toddlers. Specifically, he comes running to us every morning with the giant book shrieking, “Goldbug! Goldbug! Goldbug!” until we capitulate and agree to let him find Goldbug on every page.
Meanwhile, summer is wrapping up, and their little limbs are sweaty every day and covered in bug bites. I bathe them way less than they need, but these days, they’d much rather be outside than in the tub. I can’t say I blame them.
“We believed the lie—just like parents today believe the lie—that the quote-unquote normal family is parents and a child. In fact, that is the most abnormal family in the world. The only normal family is extended family, with your grandmother, your aunt, your sister, your next-door neighbor. Today, if you have a nanny, you’re well off, but everyone should have five nannies—an extended family, a community.”
— Dr. Harvey Karp, quoted in a New Yorker interview
A surprising grief in my life: Not living in the same town as our parents and siblings and cousins.
We’re like most of the people in our inner circle of friends here: Our families live at least several hours (if not several states) away. We survive without family help on a regular basis. We pay vast sums for childcare. We beg our parents to drive or fly down to help us as often as they are willing.
I once heard another parent say: “You’ve never experienced true envy until you meet someone whose parents live in town and regularly help with childcare.”
Nothing will cause that upwelling of covetousness like the disclosure that your parents are great and live just down the road and come over and play with the kids every week.
The solution we’re often given is to “make your own family,” but this is pretty dumb advice.
The major problem with trying to create a family-like community, at least for those of us with little kids, is that we’re all in the same boat. We have no aunts. We have no grandmothers. We have no cousins. We all need them, desperately, because we’re all in the throes of early child-rearing. We can’t help each other, even if we wanted to, because we all need the exact same kind of help. (Help, my kid has strep again and we both have big client presentations. Help, school closed for the fourth day in a row for Covid. Help, I need a break or I am going to truly lose it, etc.)
We do have some very smart friends who have intentionally cultivated relationships with people at a different life stage—older people, childless people—and made de facto uncles and aunts. It’s on us to start expanding in a similar direction, but I hesitate because, for me, it would absolutely have the ulterior motive/desperate undercurrent of OMG please help us, person with no kids, you can help us, right?? You’ve got nothing else going on, right??
We love where we live, and we’re not planning to leave, but this situation is a tension in my life. (Meanwhile, Guion is perpetually working on an aggressive marketing campaign to get all of our blood relatives to relocate here. Maybe one day we’ll see some ROI on this push.)
In conclusion: If your parents live in town and are great with your kids, happy for you. Just please don’t talk to me about it.
Make your bed
Do your skincare routine before you go downstairs
Open a window in or near the kitchen
Light a candle
Make a cup of tea
Prepare the kitchen for breakfast, for the day at large
Try to read three paragraphs in a book before the kids wake up
“I believe the entire hypertrophic bookishness of my life arose directly out of my exposure, among modest Protestant solemnities of music and flowers, to the language of Scripture. Therefore, I know many other books very well and I flatter myself that I understand them—even books by people like Augustine and Calvin. But I do not understand the Bible. I study theology as one would watch a solar eclipse in a shadow. In church, the devout old custom persists of merely repeating verses, one or another luminous fragment, a hymn before and a hymn afterward. By grace of my abiding ignorance, it is always new to me. I am never not instructed.”
— Marilynne Robinson, “Psalm Eight,” in The Death of Adam
One year in, the most unfinished room in our house is the first one you see.
It used to be our only living space, but now it’s like an awkward foyer.
I’m not very motivated to do much about it right now, but it is at the top of my curiosity list for how our home will continue to evolve.
At our current life stage, it’s useful to have so little furniture in here, so the boys can roll around while they put on their shoes and take off their jackets. They also spend a decent amount of time jumping on those floor poufs. The room becomes a loading zone for the family, as well as the place in the evening that stores the day’s detritus. Shoes are kept in an absolutely hideous faux-leather ottoman (not shown) that I think Guion stole from his college house. I cover it with a Turkish towel and am reluctant to come up with a more handsome solution for now. It works! I’m not complaining.
But I continue to be conscious that this room is our home’s first impression, and it’s kind of a weird one. We used to have a sofa, those two blue chairs, and a giant ship’s door as a coffee table, and the space was very tight. I like how empty it is right now, but it also feels unfinished and awkward.
What would you do with this room? In 5-10 years, say?
Currently Reading
The Bridge of Beyond, Simone Schwarz-Bart
The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector
The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han
Couple of Chesterfields so they’re still hardwearing for boyish chaos, but look nice (even when worn in) and aren’t too huge. You’re house is lovely.