Matriarch

New Beginning

Fri, 27 May 2005 20:30:06 GMT

As I have mourned my mother this year, I have also been questioning what comes next. My daughters are grown; my parents are dead. For the first time since my oldest was born in 1973, I don't have caregiving responsibilities.
For more than thirty years, family has been my first priority; my career played second fiddle. Should I be a librarian or a social worker? Public librarians are also social workers; people feel much more comfortable seeking information and advice from friendly, helpful people who don't pin a diagnostic label on them. I have been much more confident I have genuinely helped my library patrons than my therapy clients.
In ten days I begin a new job as a young adult librarian in a small public library on Long Island.I am looking forward to spending my working life hanging out with teens. I have never entirely outgrown adolescence. My mom was a high school teacher; she credited her students for much of her youthful vitality, enthusiasm, openness to new ideas.

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 20:00:57 GMT

I haven't written in a long time. Mourning my mother was not something I wanted to do in public. Then last summer my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. My husband and I spent as much time as possible in England. He died January 10. Twice in the past year I have had the grace and the agony of helping someone I love die at home.

December 1, 2001: Matriarch Marries Her True Love

Sat, 01 May 2004 01:49:36 GMT

My Mother Died

Mon, 19 Apr 2004 02:50:38 GMT

I haven't written because my mom got gravely ill and died at home Good Friday of aspiration pneumonia and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy after a ten day illness. She was a wonderful daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, teacher, activist, trailblazer.

Terrace Explained

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 04:48:36 GMT

The picture cries out for explanation. We lived on the twentieth floor of an apartment in Chelsea. We had a huge terrace, six feet by 46 feet with a glorious view of the Hudson River. Child-centered maniacs that we were, we had a swimming pool, a hose, a sand table, and a drain on the terrace. My kids and their friends had a wonderful time. Occasionally they had to be discouraged from trying to water people on the ground below.

Terrace on the Twentieth Floor

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:42:43 GMT

Changing My Mind about Full-Time Mothering

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:57:05 GMT

I was lucky. Before I had my first daughter, I had assumed I would want to go back to work when she was about six months old. Instead I fell madly in love with her and mothering and didn't return to work even part-time until my fourth daughter was six. This was 16 years later. I could afford to change my mind. My husband had a good job as a radiation physicist; we lived frugally. For the first eight years we raised the daughters in a city apartment. We didn't buy a house or own a car until me moved from Manhattan to Bangor, Maine. But we had enough extra for toys and books and records and Christmas trips to see the Nutcracker.. We took vacations with my parents, who financed them. We did our own cleaning; we rarely ate out. The girls went to public schools even when we were unhappy with their classes.

I have never regretted that decision to embrace full-time motherhood even after a divorce after 28 years of marriage left me economically vulnerable. I don't think my quirky, highly individual daughters would have done well in day care or with a succession of nannies. Motherhood has been an enthralling, maddening, challenging, stimulating adventure during which I have grown along with my daughters.

Even Babies Are Sleep-Deprived

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 03:53:46 GMT

Poll Finds Even Babies Don't Get Enough Rest. Infants average almost 90 minutes less sleep a day than the 14-hour minimum doctors recommend. By David Tuller. [New York Times: Health] We are in trouble. No one in America gets enough sleep, even infants. Apparently the womb is the only protected sanctuary from our brave new world of 24/7.

Mom and Fibi

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 03:42:08 GMT

I hope no one takes the following the wrong way. I am sitting at the dining room table using my ibook looking across at my mom sleeping in her recliner in the living room. In many ways her daily life seems to resemble that of Fibi, our eleven year old cat, who is sitting on her lap. Mom enjoys eating, welcoming a variety of foods. She enjoys being around people and being touched and stroked. She is touched so much more now than when she lived alone as a widow from 1987 to 2000. I am playing Bach's St. Luke's Passion on the stereo. Mom likes the room warm. In fact the only complaint she reliably makes is if she is too cold or our hands are too cold. She gets more awake and animated when there are visitors or a change in routine; she is pleased when they sit next to her, hold her hand, tell her how good she looks.
She stills wants her gray hair touched up because she cares about looking pretty. She enjoys showering and being clean. She seems to enjoy being outside, notices trees and flowers. She seems content though her daily routine is totally different than it was when she was younger. What her inner life is, I can't guess. For all I know, she could be having thrilling dreams; certainly she doesn't seem to have nightmares. She looks peaceful when she is sleeping.

When I feel overwhelmingly sad about how Mom has changed, I remind myself that I don't feel sorry for Fibi; she is just older, not the energetic, exciting cat she used to be who used to walk across our curtains rods. But we still love her, enjoy her, love to touch her, and are very glad she is around.

All the years Mom was healthy, she wasn't overly fond of Fibi, who is a rather temperamental cat. But now they both have mellowed and spend most of their days together. Fibi seems to know Mom requires gentleness . I don't mean to insult my mom in the least. I am trying to reframe her experience to make it more bearable for everyone. Cat lovers would understand.

Accepting Dependence

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 02:29:53 GMT

Baby boomers are prone to believe that if they eat right, exercise daily, keep intellectually active, they will never be frail old people, dependent on others. Until four years ago, my 82-year-old mom was extremely independent. She lived alone, she drove, she traveled, she walked, she did yoga, she had many volunteer commitments. She was the helper, never the helped. Asking for or accepting help was almost impossible for her.

Everyone admired and reinforced her independence; ironically it made her aging more difficult for everyone concerned. My mom developed Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a Parkinson-plus neurological disorder; it destroyed her balance and she started to fall. She refused to make accommodations to her growing disability. In 2000 she fractured her pelvis, her sternum, her arm, and her ribs. She broke her arm in physical therapy; bored with the exercise bike, she decided to try the trampoline, balanced on one foot, and didn't hold on. In 2001, visiting my brother, she fell from the top of his stairs and suffered serious brain damange. She has not been herself since. She is totally dependent on her family and home health aides for all activities of daily living; she can never be left alone. If she had been able to accept her need for help, she might have avoided some of the falls that so compromised her quality of life.

So many parents of friends begin to need help as they near 80. Yet so many peope in their 70's living alone don't seem to worry about their futures. Independence is a desirable goal of human development, but most of us have long periods of dependency at the beginning and end of life. Realistically accepting and planning for the probable dependence of aging may be one of the baby boomers' hardest challenges.

Importance of Attending Funerals

Sat, 27 Mar 2004 17:35:13 GMT

I haven't written this week. My uncle/godfather died and I was busy with wakes, funerals, memories. When I was younger, I was freaked out by funerals. Now I welcome the opportunity to see aunts, uncles, cousins I see too rarely. My uncle was 87, had been sick for a long time. He died peacefully, telling his family he "was going to see his bride," his wife who died ten years ago. So his funeral was more a mellow celebration of his life, very different from the wrenching heartbreak of four years ago, when my 64-year-old uncle succumbed to a four-month battle with cancer. Uncle Jim's four children and twelve grandchildren were all there. I feel strongly that people should go to their grandparents', aunts' and uncles' funerals. Two of my cousins brought their four month and seven month babies, which added to the celebration of my uncle's life.

My cousin, Jim's oldest son, gave a touching eulogy. I particularly liked this: "I would argue that Dad's secret was that he knew how to like people. There may be someone in this world who has met my father and who does not like him. However, with absolulute certainty, I can tell you that there is no one, whom my father has met, in whom my father did not immediately see the good and with whom my father would not immediately share his humor....Everyone who came into his presence met a warm smiling face and a friendly voice, which comjunicated immediately that one was accepted and loved."

My uncle was a wonderful storyteller who loved telling jokes. My cousin concluded: "I hope God likes to listen to jokes."

500,000 Women Die in Childbirth in the Third World

Sun, 21 Mar 2004 01:41:31 GMT

Terror of Childbirth. A local proverb in Chad: A woman who is pregnant has one foot in the grave. By Nicholas Kristof. [New York Times: Opinion] Over 500,000 third world women die in pregnancy and childbirth each year. The world needs a massive war on maternal mortality. Instead, we act as if the lives of illiterate, poor women and their children don't matter. President Bush has cut off $34 million in aid to the UN Population Fund which trains local midwives. If you want to get involved, contact the Averting Maternal Death and Disability program at Columbia University (www.amdd.hs.columbia.edu) and 34 Million Friends of U.N.F.P.A. (www.unfpa.org/support/friends/34million.htm). Don't miss this harrowing column.

My First Look at My Oldest Daughter, 1973

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 19:41:04 GMT

Confused Feminist Has a Baby

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 17:00:22 GMT

Leaving law school was a turning point. After a year of soul-searching journal writing, I realized that I had been denying the emotional, nurturant, sensitive side of my nature, never considering careers like psychology or social work. In the jargon of early consciousness-raising groups, I was male identified. I got very involved in the feminist movement in New York City and stopped trying to imitate my brothers.

A few months later a good friend got pregnant and I found myself intensely involved in her pregnancy. For the first time I wanted to have a baby. I questioned my motives, wondering if I was merely postponing the inevitable return to grad school. I assured myself I would go back to work when the baby was a few months old. I got pregnant the first month we tried, and I loved being pregnant. Nothing prepared me for drowning in an overwhelming surge of love, tenderness, protectiveness the minute I looked into my new daughter's bright eager eyes. I had never believed in the myths of fulfilling motherhood, and yet mothering young children was the most fascinating, creative job of my life.

Confused Feminist in Love

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 16:53:30 GMT

I read the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan when I was a freshman in college. I attended Fordham University, planning to become a college professor of political science. Fordham had just begun to admit women, and I was often the only girl in my political science class. Being the only girl and the best student in a class was heaven. I met Chris, my future first husband, in my junior year . It is a family joke that I was first attracted to him when I heard his SAT scores. Chris found my intellectuality and my femininity equally attractive, and for the first time reconciling the two seemed possible. Just to be sure, I insisted he read Simone DeBeauvoir's The Second Sex before we got engaged. What a self-righteous little prig I was !

Chris, a year behind me in college, planned to be a physics professor. When I applied to grad schools, I looked for places equally strong in both physics and political science, figuring a year's separation would make us surer about marriage. If I had known myself better, I would have applied to grad schools in New York City. I went to Stanford University in California, 3000 miles away from my love. I hated grad school, was miserable without Chris, and left after two months. I returned to NY, got married , and slowly worked my way up in New York City book publishing. I was never wildly enthusiastic about editing social science and psychiatry books. It resembled grad school, abstract, intellectual, remote from people. In 1971 I attended Columbia Law School, hating it even more than grad school.

Confused Feminist as a Girl

Sat, 20 Mar 2004 16:35:06 GMT

Growing up with five younger brothers marked me for life. For a good 16 years I was taller and stronger and smarter. Looking at old pictures that show me towering over my brothers, I mourn loss opportunities for cutting them down to size:) I recall asking the nun preparing us for Holy Communion why the boys went up to the altar first. "Because they are closer to God since they can be priests," was her reply. At that moment I became a feminist. I confess I was less interested in solidarity with women than in besting men. I felt outraged when my brother could be an altar boy and I couldn't even though my Latin was infinitely better.

My immediate neighborhood had no girls to play with, only boys, so I coped by becoming a tomboy, passionately interested in baseball. My brothers used to challenge their friends to ask me a baseball question I couldn't answer. My family always encouraged academic achievement. I was a shy intellectual in high school; my friends hung out at the high school newspaper and the debate club. None of us dated. I concluded that smart girls didn't attract men unless they deliberately played dumb, something I refused to do. Besides my ideal male was Jack Kennedy.

"Don't Cry Kitty; Mommy Will Read to You"

Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:18:45 GMT

Domesticity Is Putting Your Books in Alphabetical Order

Fri, 19 Mar 2004 22:12:17 GMT

People who don't have time to read baffle me. How do they stay sane? How do they escape? How do they figure out stuff? My first library card seemed magical. My sister-in-law once said: "your idea of domesticity is putting your books in alphabetical order." I took that as a supreme compliment:) Reading always took precedence over housework in my family. I was enchanted when my three year old crooned to her doll: "Don't cry baby; mommy will read to you." Created during a bad time in my first marriage is a sweatshirt that proclaims: "Never love a man who doesn't love Jane Austen, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Drabble" (see links). Jane Austen introduced me to my second husband, an Englishman. I made a Jane Austen literary allusion on an internet support group, and Andy made a witty comeback. I was smitten. Little did I know how much reading about green cards awaited me.

My Mother

Fri, 19 Mar 2004 20:46:58 GMT

My mom Mary is the second oldest of eight children; she has five brothers and two sisters. .She was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens. Her dad was sick throughout her adolescence and died when she was 17. Her younger brother reminisces: "When my big sister went to Our Lady of Wisdom Academy, in her first semester, she had the highest grade in the school. She was pretty, had many friends, was ever so popular and very smart." Her yearbook praises her "sincerity, bubbling vivacity, scholastic excellence, literary talents, athletic prowess, sparkling wit." Her dad was seriously sick throughout her adolescence and died when she was 17. His death ended her plans to attend college; her suddenly poor family needed her earnings. She worked as a secretary and attended college classes at night. Overworked, she got sick with pneumonia and had to withdraw from college after 18 credits.

She met her future husband, Joseph, an insurance actuary, at a summer resort in August 1942. He was drafted into the army in November 1942; for four years they wrote each other every day. We still have all their letters. They married in March 1944; I was born in 1945. They moved to Long Island and had five more children, all boys. My brothers have done well: a lawyer, an accountant, a teacher, a nurse, a chemistry professor. She has 15 grandchildren, ranging in age from 31 to 5.

Mom had not abandoned her dreams of college. When her youngest son started school in 1963 she returned to college, got her BA and MA from Hofstra in American History. She taught social studies at Uniondale High School on Long Island for 11 years. She was a dynamic, exciting teacher, the kind you don't forget. Twenty-five years after she retired, I still meet people who remember her. Her former students assure her they vote in every election because she taught them the importance of voting. For several years she worked for Bread for the World, an organization that combats world hunger. She cared for my grandmother during the last seven years of her life. My dad died of Alzheimer[base ']s disease in 1987 after a four year illness; until the last few weeks Mom cared for him at home. For 15 years she ran an Alzheimer[base ']s support group and was the chief political lobbyist for the organization.

Mom was the very model of successful aging until January 2000 when she developed Parkinson's Disease and suffered severely disabling falls. Her volunteer commitments were the equivalent of a demanding full-time job. She took cruises, lobbied in Albany and Washington for the Alzheimer[base ']s Association, visited her sons in Maine, Kansas City, North Carolina. She socialized with friends from all eras of her life. She lived alone in in a large suburban house until December 2000 when she moved in with me. She did all the shopping, home repairs, cooking, cleaning. Her home was the center for large family gatherings. She took care of a large garden. She drove constantly until her auto accident in April 2000. My mom's constant support made it possible for me to earn two master's degrees and return to work full-time with four daughters still at home. When my brother was gravely ill in 1999, she drove a hour to his hospital bedside every day for five months.

When she retired from teaching, she told the high school newspaper interviewer that she would have liked to be a lawyer, to go into politics. I can easily visually my mom in her prime running for Congress; she was such a dynamic leader. But she never indulges in regrets. She has had a rich life, serving her family and the larger world.