Mommy Wars

To tell you the truth, when Jamie first recommended this book, I kinda expected it to be a big yawn. (I should have known better--Jamie's book recommendations are always spot-on!) I am SO over the whole stay-home-vs-working-mom thing. I even blogged about this topic already, here and here. I used to ponder this issue when I was in my 30's, a fresh refugee from corporate America, and a shiny new mom myself. Now? I'm no longer in my 30's, and I've done a little of both sides (a very little of the working Mom side), and I really just think Moms should set things up however they want to. Whatever works for you, your husband, your finances, your family. Really--whatever. As for me, I'm a total SAHM, no career aspirations whatsoever. Been there, done that.

That was about a month ago. I got the book, couldn't put it down, loved it, hated it, and--here's the freaky part--in the past week I've submitted my resume for two different full-time jobs, and I couldn't be more excited about maybe (MAYBE) becoming a working mom, after all.

It wasn't because of the book, of course. Or was it? Not really--it was just part of a serendipitous (i.e., divinely orchestrated) combination of events that may wind up, you know, just changing my whole life around. No big deal. But actually--sorry--this post is not about me and my little career aspirations. Stay tuned for that. This post is about the book.

Just like the throngs of Amazon reviewers, I have lots to say about this book. I agree with the criticism that many of the women whose essays are included are somewhat out of touch with reality outside of NYC--socioeconomic reality, flyover-country reality, just-keeping-food-on-the-table reality. Yes--many of the women in "Mommy Wars" don't get it, on a lot of levels.

I really liked many of the women in the book. But not all. The mom I most wanted to go to "war" with said that she thinks that truth be told, mothers who choose to stay at home with their children full-time really are just getting satisfaction from the martyrdom aspect of it all. No kidding. My second-most hated one seemed pretty proud of herself simply for opting against an abortion when she found herself pregnant. Sheesh--am I the one who's out of touch with reality here?

Despite these two (very) bad apples, I really did find the book fascinating and absorbing. Inspiring, too, since almost all of the women were professional writers of one flavor or another, which is what I've always wanted to be when I grow up. I did get an overwhelming sense of the take-your-breath-away love for one's children that takes most of us by surprise when we have babies. There's nothing like it, and all the women in the book--even the one who frankly admitted, even to her son, that she'd have aborted him back in 1964 if it had been legal--all the women did seem to love their kids a lot.

You know what, though--abortion really did come up quite a bit in this book. I can only recall one essay in which the author actually admitted having had an abortion, but the general attitude in all of the essays was, to me, rather startling. Apparently, for sophisticated urban writer moms, abortion is no big deal at all, even though no one seems to doubt that there's a real baby already growing in there. This, my friends, is where we are after a generation of legal abortion. Next stop--out-and-out infanticide, I suppose. I pray not--and I pray for these poor women to somehow, sometime, know that enthroning of Self is not the key to a happy life.

Which leads me to the second way that this book made me feel like a disenfranchised freak (did I say that?). To me, all the essays had this undercurrent of selfishness--what's best for me, how can I be fulfilled, I've got these talents and ambition. Well, sure, but--really? Here I've been thinking that I shouldn't really be thinking about any of that. I've been under the impression that the key to a happy life is humility, self-sacrifice, self-effacement, serving others. Pride--defined as the worship of Self--is the greatest sin of all, is it not?

I'm not trying to sound self-righteous here, I promise. This whole humility vs. pursuing-worldly-success conundrum has had me so tangled up, it's why I hardly blogged at all last week. Because humility, yes, but we are supposed to use our talents and gifts to our very best ability. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do," as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians. Our work--how we spend our time on Earth--is our offering back to our Creator. We're called to make it the very best we can, no?

Maybe I am the one who's out of touch with so-called reality here, and I'm just on a waaaay different wavelength from all the women whom Leslie Morgan Steiner found to include in her book about Mommy Wars. Maybe I'm just part of some fringe group of uber-Catholics who still try to follow the Church's teachings about how to have a happy life. I didn't realize I lived in such a bubble. But I like it here. I think I'm going to stay.

The book? Sure, I liked it. It made me think. A lot, obviously. And that's what good books do.

Excuse me while I get this huge plank out of my eye...

"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
~ Matthew 7:5

(Thanks to CD for her "Judge Not" post, which gave me strength to share this very embarrassing story!)

Most of the time, in order to get through to me, it is necessary for God to hit me over the head with a 2x4. So this weekend at Mass, that is what He did.

See, there's this friend of mine who's a real sinner, for sure. Without going into too much sordid detail, let me just say that this guy is undoubtedly living in a situation that is not in accord with Church teaching. And the thing is, I see him at Mass all the time--even on weekdays--marching right up to receive Communion like he was all perfectly in a state of grace and everything. This puzzles me, and makes me mad, and gets me all judgmental. Could this guy possibly be going to Confession, like, every morning before Mass? I can't figure it out.

Well, my friend was at Mass this Sunday, sitting right up front. And much to my dismay, when the Eucharistic Ministers lined up to get the Blessed Sacrament to take out for distribution, my friend marched right up there.

"B? A Eucharistic Minister? Impossible!" I thought. Since I wasn't wearing my glasses, I literally did not believe my nearsighted eyes. I asked Bill if he was sure it was B. And it was him. So I proceeded to completely and totally freak out.

"This sinful guy? A Eucharistic Minister? Nooooooooooo! So wrong! Should I say something--you know, like after Mass? To whom? Father? Our liturgical director? B himself? Okay, so doing that might be a bit self-righteous...but he's such a sinner! This just can't be happening!"

"Please, God, send Him to the other side of the Church, away from me. Okay, well, he's walking this way, so at least send him to the other side of the aisle. Perhaps he'll have the Precious Blood which I'm skipping today because of my sore throat? Nope...he's got the Body of Christ...and he's coming to my row...and yep, I have no choice but to receive Communion from this guy."

So there I was--trapped, with no way to avoid receiving Communion from a total sinner. I'm very embarrassed to admit that I was so upset that I actually considered forgoing Communion. I gave Bill a big-eyed shocked-and-dismayed look over WWD's head, and Bill whispered "Humility."

Humility indeed. The next thought that popped into my Pharasaical little head was what I told you before: "Receiving Communion from a sinner. From a sinner from a sinner from a SINNER." I suppose that phrase was the aforementioned divine 2x4, because then it became clear to me how ridiculous I was being. Because, of course, all the Eucharistic Ministers are sinners. So is everyone else. So is Father. So am I.

SO. AM. I.

So I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and thanked God for the indescribable, unimaginable miracle that is his mercy. And I joined with Our Lord's beloved tax collectors, adulterors, thieves, and murderers, and received the Blessed Sacrament from a fellow sinner.

O Divine Lord,
how shall I dare to approach You,
I who have so often offended You?
No, Lord, I am not worthy
that You should enter under my roof;
but speak only the word
and my soul shall be healed.

Amen.

May 20, 1985

Today is 25 years since my dad died, at my age--43. We knew about his kidney cancer for about 10 months or so before we lost him to it. I was 18 and had just finished my freshman year at the University of Texas at the time. I have never written or talked about that time, because I've never really had a lot to say. (I still don't, but bear with me--ha!)

I think it's strange that my memories of his last days and his funeral are so blurry. I can't remember if I saw him just before he died, or a few days before, or a week before. I'm pretty sure I saw him still in the hospital, after he died, with a red rose in his hands, clasped across his chest. To tell you the truth, I can't remember feeling anything other than "so this is how it ended up." I must have been numb.

I was numb for the funeral, too--people tell me that seeing my brother and I stoically walking hand-in-hand down the aisle was almost creepy, because of our apparent lack of emotion. But at the time, I was just doing what I thought was the "proper" behavior at one's dad's funeral (I was, and am, quite into being proper--I can't help it!). Sobbing in front of everyone just wasn't my way of dealing with the situation, and Keith followed along, as was his way. I didn't cry at all about it for a long time; I don't know why.

I believe that our life events and circumstances provide the forge that God uses to mold, shape, and carve us into the beings He has planned for us to be. He does bring great good from great sadness, after all. Sometimes it's easy to drive yourself crazy trying to analyze His divine plans. It's taking me a lifetime to stop analyzing, and just live! But my dad's death was certainly a pivotal point in both my brother's and my faith journeys, if you go in for such concepts as "faith journeys." After that year, Keith and I both developed into extremely fervent Christians.

I can't speak for Keith, but to me, when confronted with something so profound as the early loss of my father, I was struck once and for all with the totality of my powerlessness. We are not in control, after all. Until then, I'd been pretty much focused on carving out my own contribution to the world, working hard to build my resume and climb the ladder of earthly achievement. In other words, I was a totally selfish teenager, as my dad would have been first in line to tell you. But when he died, all of that began to seem like a waste of time. My world view changed in favor of things that are more deeply relevant--relationships, not my resume. And since then I've never once believed that I could control my own life. If God was so obviously in charge of when and how our lives end, I figured, how could we really do anything at all without Him?

I've seen this go the other way, you know. My mom and my grandmother both had a spiritual response to my dad's death that was the polar opposite of mine and Keith's. They became angry with God, and my mom, at least, has never been able to trust Him since. To tell you the truth, it is one of the greatest sadnesses of my life that now, with her disability, she can't understand things about God in any way but a very childlike one. Of course, that's exactly how He wants us to know Him, though, isn't it?

Twenty-five years after the fact, when I try to remember clear details about my father's wake/viewing and funeral, they just don't come. I have flashes--riding in the limosine past the chemical plant where he worked for his whole life, that hand-holding walk with my brother, what I was wearing (of course), reaching out the limo window for a hug from my childhood neighbor, whom I hadn't seen in years--but I'd expect to remember much more than I do. Other memories, of things much less important from the same time period, are much crisper, and I can't imagine why that would be. Perhaps the fact that there have been several other very similar family funerals at the exact same funeral home, with burials just a few yards from my father's, with many of the very same people attending, has blurred those 1985 memories. I am scared, humbled, and saddened by the fact that one or two more of those family funerals are looming in the not-too-distant-at-all future.

Not to be over-the-top dramatic or trite about it, but I really think that my dad's death was when I started--just started, of course--to grow out of my selfish, spoiled teenage self. And perhaps that is a very small part of the good that God brought out of that young death. In a tiny way, maybe, my dad died for me, in that way. Perhaps he (God? My dad?) knew there was no other way to snap me out of it! And now, after twenty-five years, I see my dad every day, of course, in the five precious little faces and souls that take after him in so many ways. I know that he sees them too, and he is so proud.