The World is a Scary Place
Yes, the world is a scary place and certainly computers and cell phones have changed our lives. But, the world has been a scary place before. I was a kid during three assassinations, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Manson murders, Jonestown … the nuclear meltdown of Three Mile Island when the possibility of the world ending was very close. The whole idea of sending our precious children into that world can be terrifying. But they aren’t children. Remember how you were told your child would react as you did, if you burst into tears when someone tackled them in football, actually he just told me to never attend another game, ever, but you get the point.
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How to Be a Writer/Mother/Wife/Daughter
First, when your little boy decides to give you a new hairdo while weaving binder clips, white out, jars of pencils, and possibly a small stapler into the back of your head, let him. This may give you another ten minutes or so of working on your book. Recognize as soon as the call comes from the West Coast radio show your son will forget the “no talking game” and demand something complex from the refrigerator. You will describe your artistic beliefs while mixing Parmesan cheese into orzo. Then he will tell you he needs to sit on your lap and whisper things in your ear even though this sort of thing never happens anymore. Practice sounding authorial while your child mutters, “I love my momma” in your ear repeatedly.
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Benign Neglect
Hearing the news about CEOs and Hollywood stars implicated in the recent college admission scandal infuriates and inspires me. I am a writing coach, with three published novels, numerous essays, and decades of teaching high school and college students with stints in schools blacklisted by the Chicago Police Department for gang activity and schools famous for the wealth of its students, the rigor of its classes and its social pressure. I work with rich kids, poor kids, and everything in between. My message to them remains the same, tell your story, tell it well. Teenagers need to be allowed to find their own identities through music and books and their peers and teachers. Not their parents.
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