When I'm Wrong I Say I'm Wrong

JENN McKINLAY: After reading Saturday’s Mother’s Day post, I was struck by how “right” most of our mothers always thought they were. They didn’t hem or haw or question it. They were the authority and that was that. Y’all, that is so not me. 

The Hooligans at peak teen would get into trouble–as teens do–and, of course, Hub and I would discipline them with loss of privileges or groundings–as parents do–but I am so terrible at conflict that when voices got raised or doors were slammed, I was beside myself. I could never sustain the feeling of being at odds.

The Hooligans used to set a timer on their phone for twenty minutes and every single time, I’d crack like a walnut and pop up at their door, asking, “Are you okay? Are we okay? Should we talk about this? Want to hug it out?” One of the last times this happened, Hooligan 1 in complete exasperation, said, “Mom, stop! I was wrong. It’s okay that you yelled at me. I deserved it.” Then he hugged me because I still felt bad. 

Now, lest you think I couldn’t discipline them when they needed it, I am the mom who had them hold a bar of soap in their mouth for thirty seconds when they screamed, “I hate you!” Because, no, we are not having that. But the one thing I never assumed was that I was always right and I feel like that is the major difference between me and the generation who parented me because Hub and I have talked and neither of us can ever remember our moms (or dads) apologizing for anything ever.

How about you, Reds? Are you always right? 

LUCY BURDETTE: Just ask John–I’m very definite! Maybe it’s because of my personality, or maybe I’m just enough older than you Jenn, or maybe because my kids were my stepkids–switching between households makes everything a bit more complicated and fraught. Anyway, I still think kids do better with clear boundaries and expectations, and the current popularity of “gentle parenting” makes me crazy.:) See, I told you I was definite!

RHYS BOWEN: I think I’ve become better at apologizing when I’m wrong as I’ve gotten older. When I was young I found it hard to admit it. With four children I ran a tight ship. We were the parents. There were rules. We went through all the usual teenage dramas with three girls. “I can’t believe you’ve ruined my life!” etc when I wouldn’t let them go to a party.

Interestingly enough my third daughter, Jane, was very young for her grade at school (she’d been promoted up a grade). So there were things she didn’t feel comfortable with. She’d be on the phone with a friend and I’d hear her say “A party at Jake’s house? Oh, I bet my mom won’t let me go.”  She’d look over at me and make a face, indicating she didn’t want to go. I’d say. “You’re right. You’re not going.” And she’d say into the phone. “See. I knew she wouldn’t let me.”  We were a good team.

After three girls Dominic was so easy as a teenager. He came home late once. We said, “You were supposed to be in by ten on a week night. You’re grounded for a week.”  He said, “That seems fair enough” and went to his room.  He’s still really easy going!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Such an interesting thing to think about, Jenn. I don’t remember my parents ever admitting they were wrong about anything, or apologizing. Looking back, they probably weren’t wrong about much, except their politics, which I absolutely was not allowed to argue about. But still, what a generational shift.

As a divorced mom of a pre-teen then teenager, I think I tried extra hard to set rules. Unlike in your daughter Jane’s case, Rhys, they were not appreciated! And like Jenn, I’m super non-confrontational and hated for us to be mad at each other. Somehow we got through it, but I think boys might be easier.

HALLIE EPHRON: Wrong? Who me??? Absolutely. I remember when one of my daughters enraged me so much (why? I have no idea… and I must have been exhausted, or maybe that’s just my guilty conscience trying to come up with a reasonable explanation) that I hauled off and slapped her on the bottom. 

Stunned silence followed, and then she ran crying up to her bedroom. 

I NEVER hit my kids. And yet I had done just that. I snuck up to her room soon after, knocked sheepishly at the door, crept inside and apologized. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: This is a great question. One of the great joys of my life was realizing that I’m not always right. That someone else might have a good idea. It’s really quite freeing, and has changed my life.

One of the things about being a reporter is that you have to have a careful balance of what you believe is right with what you might not know. Again, being open minded about the truth whatever that is is important to me in every way. And when it comes to writing my novels, I know an editor might have a terrific idea, and I might not be right about what I wrote.

My problem is I am often very convinced that I am right. And I can be very persuasive, I will admit to you. And I can get quite carried away with my persuasion.   Sometimes, when I’m trying to convince Jonathan of something, I will stop and say – – you know, I’m actually not quite sure about this, and I know I am winning you over here, but fair warning , I could be wrong.

All I know about raising kids is how I see my stepson and his wife bringing up our adorable grandsons. I would not have made some of the parental decisions they did, and I would have been much tougher. (As on the day one of them was whining, maybe 10 years ago, about how everybody had eaten all the cereal that he was hoping to have. 

His mother suggested that she would go to the grocery and get more. And I said “Not a chance. Life is tough,  buddy, eat the cereal that’s left.” 

And he happily did. 

And I have to say, even though I would have made different decisions for them along the way, the kids turned out to be spectacular. 

So, I was wrong. (Maybe.)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Oh, I'm an apologizer. SUCH an apologizer. As a mother, I think it's so important to let kids know 1) we don't always get it right and 2) when that happens, we can acknowledge it. Model how you want them to be, right?

I'm also a promoter of - don't take this the wrong way - weaponized apologizing. Yes! Have you screwed up at work? Forgot to order the baby shower decorations? Spilled wine on someone as you walked to your table in a restaurant. Apologize! Apologize lavishly, abjectly and continuously until people forgive you just to get you to stop. It's impossible to remain mad at someone who will. Not. Stop. Accepting the blame. Try is sometime! 

How about you, Readers? Are you an "always right" sort of person or is admitting a mistake easy for you?

Partying thoughtfully with Robyn Harding

HALLIEEPHRON: When I was at Surrey International Writers Conference in Vancouver this year, I met Robyn Harding. It's one of the great pleasures of going to writing conferences, meeting people that you then want to introduce to your friends. 

Robyn is the author of The Party (June 2017, Scout Press/Simon & Schuster), as well as four contemporary women's novel, a young adult novel, and a comedic memoir.

Oh, yeah, she's also a screen writer.

...AND the mother of teenagers. 

So she was perfectly equipped to write about a good daughter, caring parents, and the aftermath of a Sweet Sixteen that tears a family apart. The Booklist reviewer called it "a cross between Megan Abbott and Jodi Picoult by way of James Patterson." Not too shabby and right up my alley!

Welcome, Robyn! Please tell this story isn't part memoir.

ROBYN HARDING: When the mother of two teenagers writes a book about an incident of teen drinking gone horribly wrong, readers tend to make assumptions. Firstly, they think the book is about the author and her family. 

“Are you Kim?” they ask me, delighted to think that I am secretly an uptight, semi-adulterous, control freak. “Is your daughter a sneaky drinker? Do you and your husband keep secrets from each other?” 

I assure them that the book is fiction. We are a normal family, and, while far from perfect, we are significantly less messed up than the characters in The Party.

Secondly, readers think that I must have a strong, informed stance on teen drinking, that I must have answers. Sadly, I don't.

When my eldest became a teen, I was strict. There were no parties under my roof. If my son was invited to a get-together, I asked about parental supervision. I never supplied him with liquor, and I did random sniffs of his breath and his water bottle for telltale signs of drinking. 

When he turned 18, he was accepted into university in Montreal, where the legal drinking age is 18 (it is 19 in Vancouver where we live). I would be sending my baby to a city, 3,000 miles away, where he could legally drink. Where he could go to bars and nightclubs.

Suddenly, I feared my strict alcohol policy had failed him. He should have practiced! At home! Where I was just a phone call away, if he got sick, or needed a ride . . . or bail!

My daughter is in twelfth grade, now. I find myself being slightly more lenient with her. She goes to parties, on occasion. We talk about setting limits with booze, about pacing herself, about eating a substantial dinner, and drinking water between alcoholic beverages (things I learned the hard way).

The scenario in The Party, while fictitious, was inspired by numerous real-life cases where well-meaning parents paid an enormous price when teen drinking went wrong. 

As a writer, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell such a disturbing tale, to shepherd these characters from one disaster to the next. But I knew this was a book that I would want to read. And I felt it was an issue that would make for compelling drama.

So now, I have written a novel about teen drinking, but I am no expert. I think every kid is different. Zero-tolerance might illicit respectful compliance in one child and drive another one to rebel. Being a “cool” parent might prompt moderation in some kids, while others would take the freedom to extremes. 

I hope that this novel will get parents to talk: to each other, and to their teens. . ..

Whether that is over a cup of tea or a glass of wine, is up to them.

HALLIE: I have two daughters so this resonates with me. You do what you can to endow them with common sense and resourcefulness, but then you have to let go and allow them make their own mistakes. Add alcohol to the mix, and all bets are off. 

So what do you think? How did your parents introduce you to alcohol and help you deal with drinking when you came of age (and before)? 

I Think That I Shall Never See, A School Project on the Life Cycle of A Tree...

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Last night, I stayed up very late (or early) because Youngest was doing A Project. Those of you who aren't parents may not recognize the unholy terror that rises in the breast when you hear those words. Those who are may be having PTSD-like flashbacks to pouring baking soda into a funnel.

We all remember doing A Project as a kid. The sugar-cube igloo, the papier-mâché volcano, the poster illustrating the life cycle of a butterfly, complete with a real cocoon found on a bush. First off, let's posit this: no Project ever taught you anything you couldn't learn from reading a paragraph in an encyclopedia (1). I learned more about volcanoes from watching Tommy Lee Jones tracking lava flow down La Cienega Boulevard than I ever did from making a clay model of Mount Vesuvius (2). I know about Iroquois family structure because I read a book about it, not because I made a model of a long house.(3) 

Reminiscing about the Projects of your youth, you will see a shadowy figure in the background. Look closer. Is it coming into focus? Yes, it's your mother or father (4). It was, in fact, your mother who tore 500 strips of newspaper and dunked them in runny wheat paste until her fingers turned gray that enabled you to get an A on that dinosaur model. It was your father who found that moth cocoon in the back yard and told you it belonged to a butterfly. It was MY mother who sat up until 2am cutting out pictures of flowers from magazines (5) for a poster whose content and purpose I can't recall. Pistils and stamen, maybe? The parts of which, by the way, I still can't identify. One of my kids asked me one time in the garden and I said, "All that with the pollen is the flower's naughty bits."

Yes, much of the real work of The Project is done by good old Mom or Dad. I'm not talking about helicopter parents who design posters that look as if they should be hanging in the MOMA. Even those of us who believe our kids ought to be the moving force behind The Project still wind up as unheralded laborers. It's like admiring, say, Vita Sackville-West's garden. The creative design is hers, sure, but there still wouldn't be anything to look at without some poor old sod digging in 500 pounds of manure by hand. You, the parent, are the poor old sod in this case (6).

Why is this? Mostly, its due to the Universal Law of School Projects, which states a child will tell its parents about a project no more than 24 hours before it is due (7). The Universal Law also states there will be at least one ingredient to the project that will require a trip to Michael's or Jo-Ann's (8), or, if your child is older, a dash to Staples to replace your color ink cartridges (9). Because your kid will have to do five hours of work between the time he told you about The Project and bedtime - not to mention his other homework for the next day - you inevitably wind up doing the scut work while he does his math sheets.

How has this worked out in my own life as a parent? Well, there was the time Youngest came up with a magnificently creative Project on Oskar Schindler, featuring a life-sized cut out of Schindler with the name of every person he saved from the Holocaust written inside the outline of his body. Schindler was truly worthy of being recognized as Righteous Among Nations, because he saved hundreds and hundreds of people, and The Smithie (bless her heart) and I wrote down every one of their names. By hand. 

Or there was the time The Sailor had to collect ten different leaves for a leaf and seed board (10). Unfortunately, it was autumn, and Ross and I still worked in our office jobs, meaning we and the children got home well after the sun had already set. Guess who spent an hour casing the yard with a flashlight to find suitable specimens? (11) Or, for each of my three kids, the traditional State O' Maine trifold board presentation, featuring lobsters, blueberries, fish, pine trees and chickadees. (12) Or the Smithie's dioramas - I had a entire room in my barn dedicated to saving cardboard boxes for dioramas. They always required small plastic figurines (13), paint (14) and some three-dimensional sky element like cotton ball clouds or glow in the dark stars (15). Then I had to save them as precious mementos for about a decade until the Smithie forgot about them and I could throw them out.

I admit, I was surprised when Youngest told me she had a Project (16). My exact words were, "For God's sake, you're a junior in high school taking AP classes! Why are you wasting your time making a poster?" It's a very nice one, however, with thirty French sentences about Rwanda neatly written in the colors of the national flag along an outline of the country (17). It was good to know I could step up my Project game when necessary - and all I had to do was help with a couple verbs and give my opinion on the graphic design. This had better be the last one, however (18).

How about you, dear readers? Tell us about the posters, papier-mâché and potting clay of your Projects past and present!

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(1) For younger readers, an encyclopedia was like Wikipedia, but set down on paper. It also served as a decorative accent on your parents' teak Danish modern bookcase.

(2) Also awesome? The 1959 Last Days of Pompeii. History AND vulcanology in one! You really can't beat Steve Reeves in a skimpy toga.

(3) It was a bitchin' model, though. I used real bark and moss and had a little plastic deer standing right outside. Which, when I think about it, was not a safe place for the deer. Oh, well.

(4) If the Shadowy Figure is not your mother or father, you may be a character in a dark psychological thriller.

(5) In the olden days, children, we had no printers at home, and our parents had to stockpile magazines as a sort of graphic image library. You were allowed to cut up any magazine except National Geographic, which was a Serious Reference that you kept on the bookcase, cf. note (1) 

(6) And in so many others.

(7) In many cases, the notification of The Project happens at 8pm, right after you ask your child if his homework is all done. "Oh," he will say. "I forgot. I have to make a poster labeling all the parts of a starfish. Can you get me some colored pencils and a poster board?"

(8) It doesn't matter how much craft material you have stored in a closet. If you have crepe paper, your child will need ribbons. If you have buttons, she will need tiny mirrors. If you have little plastic animals, she will need little felt animals.

(9) Because he needs 20 color pictures representing the cultural life of Senegal. Which you will wind up finding, downloading, cropping, printing and trimming. I think the magazine thing was easier.

(10) Trip to Michael's for rigid foam board.

(11) Me.

(12) I wanted to include double-wides and meth teeth, but Ross wouldn't let me.

(13) Michael's

(14) Michael's

(15) CVS or Michael's depending on if it was a daytime or nighttime scene.

(16) When I dropped her off at the high school yesterday, The Project was due today.

(17) Poster board and markers from Wal-Mart. I was in the area.

(18) Because at the start of the school year I threw out all the other materials I had been saving. She's a junior! Taking AP classes!

Will Sell Dreams for Food: a guest blog by Laura DiSilverio

 

Julia Spencer-Fleming:  Laura DiSilverio has a pretty high profile in the mystery world. She's the author of ten mystery novels, including the Mall Cop series for Berkley Prime Crime and the Swift Investigations humorous PI series for Minotaur. She teaches for MWA’s Mystery University, and serves as Vice-President of the National Board of Sisters in Crime (where our own Hank Phillippi Ryan is President!) 

But it wasn't until I met Laura in person that I realized how much we have in common. We're both Air Force brats. Like my husband Ross, the USAF was Laura's first career - she was an intelligence officer. We both left practical jobs to try our hand at writing and spend more time mothering. And, most significantly at this point in our lives, we're both dealing with teens and preteens at home. Which is why, when Laura said, "I want to write about the ridiculous ideas lofty goals my kids have for the future," I knew we had to have her here at JRW.

Will Sell Dreams for Food

My older daughter, 15, is planning for a career on Broadway. She takes voice and dance (musical theater and tap), sings with the school choir, performs in school plays, and spent six weeks this past summer working nine to five every day with the youth rep company she auditioned for last March. Her father and I watch all this with a certain degree of—shall we say?—trepidation.

We’re worried for her, that she’s aiming for a career where .0004 percent of the people who try to make it succeed (okay, I made that figure up, but I doubt it’s far off—it might even be generous), and she’s bound to meet with soul-eroding rejection while living on Ramen noodles, selling her blood plasma, and sharing a studio apartment with six roommates of dubious hygiene habits and countless cockroaches.

We’re worried for us, that we’ll empty our retirement funds to support her in NYC and she’ll return home at thirty, disillusioned and worn down, trashing her chances for more conventional employment by quoting Lady MacBeth at job interviews, and making it impossible for hubby and me to continue with our plan of getting frisky in every room of the house whenever we want and as loudly as we want once we’re empty nesters.

Must Be This Tall to Ride the Rollercoaster

Daughter the younger, newly turned 13, plans to attend Stanford on a volleyball scholarship, study engineering and architecture, and become both an architect and an Indian fast food restaurant billionaire. (She has long lamented that there are no fast food joints that serve Indian food and she’s planning to fill that gap.) This might all be more likely if she was taller than 5’3” since the average Stanford volleyballer looks to be about 6’3”. We don’t squelch this dream too hard because she’s got a decent shot at getting into Stanford on an academic scholarship and we’re in favor of the whole billionaire thing since she says she’ll support us.

The Parenting Dilemma

The parenting question we struggle with is this: How do you encourage kids to dream and follow their passions, and yet inject enough sanity into the process that they’re prepared to cope with failure and know when it’s time to try something else? Don’t look at me for the answer, ’cause I got nothin’, although I have been known to extol the benefits of a career as an actuary, mortician or IT specialist with benefits. If you’ve got good parenting advice on this topic, bring it on.

Dream On

This all made me think about having the courage to follow our dreams and passions, even the little ones. I spent twenty years in the Air Force, dreaming of being a novelist, and now that’s how I make my living. (Okay, it’s not much of a living. If I didn’t have a pension and a hubby with a good job, my children would be dreaming of secure careers as Wal-Mart greeters, rather than of Broadway, but if I were single I’d be able to afford Spam with my ramen noodles once a week.) I’m still working on my dreams of visiting every continent and learning to ballroom dance.

What about you? What dreams, seemingly ridiculous or hard to achieve, large or small, have you taken a stab at? Going blond? Getting a college degree? Climbing a mountain? Playing an instrument or learning a language? Pursuing a particular career? Are you glad you tried it or do you regret the time and effort you invested? 

Rev up those dreams, leave a comment and get a chance to win an Advance Reader Copy of Laura’s upcoming release, SWIFT RUN, or a copy of the book when it releases on 27 November!  As a fun bonus, check out the Minotaur Art blog, where art director David Rotstein shows us sketch by sketch how his team came up with SWIFT RUN's amusing cover.

Laura's also offering a chance to win an iPod Nano by commenting on an entry in the Courageous Moment essay contest on her blog, The Year of Living Courageously, between now and 14 November.

You can find out more about Laura and her books at her website and at her blog, The Year of Living Courageously. You can follow her on Twitter as @LauraDiSilverio and friend her on Facebook.