The Tamesis
My mother was not a Tiger Mom during my childhood. She never criticized me harshly for my grades (a good thing considering my string of academic failures) and was pretty lax about household chores (to this day, I don’t own a vacuum cleaner…red flag, I know). But the way I behave is very important to her, and she lets me know that. She wasn’t a copy of Emily Gilmore, obsessed with perfect manners at the prom, but for as long as I can remember, she emphasized the importance of listening to and engaging other people, telling me, “Always talk to the person standing alone at the party.”
When I was a teenager, I complained about my mom’s weird habits and rules and couldn’t understand why my friends’ moms would shower me with empty compliments and Oreos, while my own mom was more likely to raise an eyebrow at my outfits and say some mildly destructive things (but Very Funny thing) When I walked out the door she had a glass of white wine in her hand. I would be annoyed by her insistence. politedesperate to participate in the time-honored rite of social exclusion of adolescence, but always hearing my mother’s voice in my head asking me who I was without excluding others.
Now, as an adult, I deeply value my mom’s unorthodox parenting style. Because of her, I’ve been able to hold my own at dinner parties since sixth grade—I know, that’s very Whit Stillman—and more importantly, I know the importance of shutting up and asking people questions, whether I’m reporting on a story, on a first date, or just riding the bus in Los Angeles. “Everyone is interested in something, you just have to figure it out,” my mom once told me, and seriously, isn’t that a lesson more kids should learn?
Did my mother make a mistake? certainly. As I’ve gathered from fifteen years of guest-starring in other families’ caregiving dynamics, the only constant about parenthood is that you’re going to screw up in some way, and probably not in the way you expect. Now, though, now that I’m 32 and living on the other side of her, my mom and I talk on the phone every day whenever she’s willing to let me feed her story ideas, date advice, and memories of parties at Dan Tana in 1983.
I had no idea if I would have children or even what my life would look like in a few months. But if I did become a mother, I know I would want to skip the need to soften the world for my children and instead try to prepare them as best as possible to truly face it with humor and empathy. After all, that’s what my mother has always done for me.
