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Ben Stories: Guest Post

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This installment of Ben Stories is brought to you by someone who knows him very well, even if she doesn’t always know everthing he’s up to…his mom, Debbie.

Let me introduce you to Ben: Sue’s husband, Nora’s Dad, Elizabeth’s brother, and Larry and Debbie’s son.  Ben is quietly clever, smart, funny, creative, and always has a project of some sort going on.

Sharing this story borders on exposing ourselves as really tuned-out and oblivious parents.  But, what the heck.  When Ben was growing up, he was fascinated with putting things together.  Well, actually, he was usually more interested in taking things apart, but we like to frame things in a positive way.  Not all parents would appreciate this type of talent, but we thought him amazing.

I truly believe we are the only parents on the block who were unaware that their teenaged son was rebuilding a motorcycle in his bedroom.  Ben would walk by the family room on his way to his room, slinking ever so slyly, carrying something large and heavy.  “Hi Mom.  Hi Dad,” he’d greet us.   At this stage in his life he kept his room in such disarray that we seldom entered, and when we did there was so much clutter that we probably wouldn’t have noticed the large engine setting on the floor.  He was always carrying tools in and out of the house.  This should have probably alerted us to his craft, but who ever thought he’d be so bold to do automotive repair in the house.

And then one day we noticed him carrying objects out of the house, back into the garage.  Voila!  A full motorcycle suddenly appeared in the garage.  Of course, when he moved out, we had to pull up the bedroom carpet (a few oil stains), paint the walls (minor splashing) and set out air fresheners (petroleum, you know).

You gotta love the guy!

Ben’s Mom

Parenting is Not Cool

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The other day, I heard myself telling someone that I wanted to write for a magazine that wasn’t about kids. “I want to write for grown-ups,” is how I put it.  But, it got me thinking. People without kids seem to think parental concerns are uncool. Why is that?

So, I started working on a post about why parenting is cool — until I realized: it isn’t. 

It can’t be.  Cool is for people with time on their hands.  Hours to think about their hair and clothes and new music.  Days to fret over choosing hippest possible frames for their glasses.  Weeks to find the best local coffee shop.  And that’s fine.  I understand appeal of that lifestyle. 

But it’s not for parents.

We parents haven’t seen any new indie movies or fretted over the perfect messenger bag to use while riding our fixed gear bicycles.  We are too sleep deprived to go clubbing.

We have play-dough stuck under our fingernails and Raffi running through our heads.

We pack our kids a healthy lunch every day.  We worry over little psyches and social-emotional health.  We fill out school paperwork and write checks for every fund raiser.  We know how to rotate acetaminophen and ibuprofen for maximum fever reduction. 

As I write this, I am sitting on a stool in my bathroom, holding a laptop, keeping my 3-and-a-half-year-old company as she poops.  No one on this earth considers that “cool.” But she just told me she loves me “more than anything.”  So there.

Parenting isn’t cool; it’s important.  And it’s when you realize that being cool isn’t important.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have crucial work to do. Nora says it’s time for me to wipe her bottom.

Food

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Last Saturday afternoon I broke with my usual healthy eating habits. I made “pigs in a blanket” from a pack of Hebrew National Hotdogs and a tube of Pillsbury crescent dough. Then I ate four of them. I suffered acute sodium overload. I was a cranky, sad mess until the salt was flushed from my system late Sunday evening. I had no patience for my daughter, blamed my husband for all my problems and sat around crying. It became obvious where I went wrong as my dry mouth prompted me to drain glass after glass of water. I knew I had only myself to blame. Then I thought, “how much of bad parenting and poorly behaved children is attributable to poor eating?”

Lesson: Stick with the whole grains and hummus. Bad food is bad parenting.