Legitimizing Writing Time

Here I am, sitting on an airplane flying thirty thousand feet above a sea of clouds. The sun is just rising in the horizon, an orangy-yellow presence outside the oval plane window. I am flying to Los Angeles, where, for the next three days, I will attend the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators conference. Yesterday I was all mother. For the next three days I get to be all writer, guilt-free.

Guilt defines much of who I am. Since the children spend only half of the week with me, I want to give them my entire attention when they are around. Partly I do this to make up for not being there the other half of the week, and partly because I want to give them so much, but I don’t have enough time. My writing, therefore, takes second place (or even third and fourth) when the children are around.

A writers’ conference, however, is a different story. It sounds so..., well, so legitimate, so important. It sounds real! Engineers, teachers, people with real jobs go to conferences. And once in a while so do I. I go to the conference and feel that I’m doing something to further my career. I’m making contacts, deepening my knowledge of the business of writing and publishing. Then, after three days of taking myself seriously, I go back home to writing on a desk surrounded by pecking chickens, barking dogs, and attention-deprived children.

The quiet before the storm -- conference main room

The truth is that at home I doubt the legitimacy of my writing. I minimize my computer time when the children are around so as not to encourage them to spend time on their computers as well. Except, here’s what makes no sense about this: I am not playing on the computer or watching a teen series with too-beautiful photo-shopped young people. I am working! I am writing, and someday someone will want to read what I write. Right?

Am I working, or am I playing around? Am I indulging in a hobby which might never become a job? Certainly, I don’t treat writing as a job. I do not sit at my desk 9 to 5. And if part of the definition of a job is that it earns the worker money, then I am not exactly up to standard in that. I do what I love, and I feel privileged and grateful to be able to do that. But with an inexplicable fear of what others, my children included, will say, I don’t follow my writing ambitions, yet, with the same single-minded sense of purpose that I do other goals of my life. Motherhood, for example.

My son tells me: “Why are you on the computer all the time?” “Blogging,” he answers his own question, and a tone of hurt (or is it contempt?) sneaks into his voice. Once again I realize how important it is for me to feel the legitimacy of my writing, make room for WRITER in my definition of self. It’s ok, I think, frightening though it is for me to say, not to be 100% mother all the time. I wonder what will happen when I stop being afraid of being more than mother, and give myself permission to feel sometimes all writer inside....

The Suffering of the Jewish Mother

The combination “Jewish Mother stereotype” generates 47,800 results on google. But what, exactly, does it mean? The definition on Wikipedia, drawn from Margaret Mead’s research on Jewish Shtetl life, describes a Jewish Mother as “a woman intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt in her children via the endless suffering she professes to have experienced on their behalf.”

The Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel

Oh dear, that’s not me, is it? Am I the stereotypical Jewish Mother? I’ve given birth to two beautiful and smart children and so I’m a mother. My mother is Jewish, and that makes me a Jew according to Jewish law. But though I’m Jewish and a mother, I’m not sure I’m ready to submit to the stereotype. Is it my destiny to be an overprotective, manipulative, and overbearing mother?

Of course, I am overprotective. I spoil the children with gifts and sweets, and I don’t get half as much respect from them as I would like. I know I am a dominant force in my children’s life, but I’d rather not consider myself overbearing. I hope I don’t guilt them into behaving the way I want them to, but even as I write these words I can see my son’s contrite face after he has done something that disappointed me. And my conscience produces a ton of pangs, that’s for sure.

Treats for Eden's birthday

My mother did not hover over us, nor was she more overbearing than my friends’ parents, or prone to generating enormous guilt. Every year, however, there was one day on which she amassed enough guilt to last a year: Yom Kippur. My mother religiously fasted on Yom Kippur, refusing even water. Wandering around the house, her head aching, wan-faced and near fainting, she made all of us feel guilty about every single bite of food that came into our mouths. As Yom Kippur wound up, she’d sit with a cup of tea and some toast, the image of righteousness.

Celebrating the last night of Hanukkah

I was never able to fast. An uncontrollable hunger, the likes of which I never experienced on normal days, seized me whenever I contemplated fasting, preventing me from skipping even a late dinner on Yom Kippur eve. My sister sometimes fasted in an effort to decrease her feelings of guilt about our mother’s suffering. My brother, who never ate unless food was placed directly in front of him, probably never noticed the pressure, and my father, who claimed (and still insists to this day) that he doesn’t need to fast because he never sins, appeared to consider my mother’s Yom Kippur agonies an expression of insanity best ignored.

To this day, I’m certain my mother’s purpose in suffering so much while fasting was entirely altruistic: she wanted to ensure that we all of us were written into the Book of Life. We felt the pain of her pain, and I guess, for the purposes of the Book of life, it was enough.

The Love that Keeps on Growing

Last night I went to sleep overwhelmed by exhaustion. We had a full and busy day. After breakfast, we left for a hike at Angel Island. The kids watched a movie in the car on our way to Tiburon. On the ferry ride, Uri wanted to be on the top deck and Eden at the bottom. Thank the fairies for Dar, who stayed below while Uri and I braved the wind up above.

Uri on the ferry

We wandered about the island for a couple hours. The sun shone brightly on this perfect San Francisco day. We saw a solitary hummingbird perched on a brightly colored bush. Eden climbed by herself to peek through a window in an old Fort building and jumped down with my help. On the way back in the ferry we sat quietly together on the top deck, shivering slightly in the wind. We stopped in San Francisco to visit my cousin and his wife who had just had a baby and ate cake and gefilte fish and drank tea while the kids played on our iphones. On the drive home I struggled to stay awake in the car.

The moment we got in the door, Uri asked: “Will you play ping-pong with me?”

Kids exploring old site in the fort

Oh dear fairies. Now? I’m so tired. We just spent the entire day together! Can’t you entertain yourself for a while? The reply: a long and disappointed face. Back turned. Walking with heavy feet away. And me? Struck by guilt, I realized I just said no to an opportunity for closeness, for love with my preteen son. How many more opportunities like this will come my way as he grows up?

I put some rice on the stove and called out, “I can play ping pong now.” His little face appeared no more than a split-second later. “I’m ready!” He announced. And we played ping pong and baseball and basketball. Uri kept complimenting me on my improvement in these three branches of sport. But how could I not improve? I’ve been practicing them on a daily basis whenever he is around!

Eden in the window

In the last month, I have been scheduling special time with the kids -- a time in which they each have me entirely to themselves and we do whatever he or she wants to do. The kids were enthralled. They are voting for longer and longer special times, even when I am busy with other stuff. My morning read-while-I-eat routine has been shifting to play-Go-Fish-with-Eden while I eat. My afternoons have been spent playing ball sports and jumping on the trampoline.

I give the children more of my attention, and I am amazed by how how much time, attention and love the children invest in me back. After all, they could be playing on the computer or watching TV. But it seems that at 11 and 9 they still long for mommy-and-me time, just like me.