Today it is my pleasure to welcome Lynne Marie Wanamaker of Mind Body Mama. Lynne Marie is another writer I met through the Momalom’s Five for Ten challenge last fall.* Her weekly essays – on topics ranging from modern motherhood to mindful self-defense – consistently capture me with their eloquence and wisdom.
Thank you, Lynne Marie, for sharing an essay with the Motherese community.
While Lynne Marie is hanging out at Motherese today, I am over at her place, musing on my inability to multi-task and what that might mean for my parenting skills.
Please enjoy Lynne Marie’s essay, leave her some comment love, and then click on over to Mind Body Mama to check out my post.
* Five for Ten is coming back, by the way! Check out the details by clicking on the button in the sidebar.
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Mind Body Mama: Mama Rage
When my sister and I were growing up we spent our summer vacations at the town beach on Long Island Sound. Every day, my mother and her friends established an encampment that stretched from the bath houses to the shore. My grandparents were part of this clan, and my god-mother and her sons, who were so close in age to us as to nearly be our twins. Several teachers joined us, and a guitar teacher whose grandson visited for weeks each year. On a good day, there could be as many as fifteen or twenty sun-worshippers lined up for their devotionals.
The season-long party was structured by byzantine, organically erupting, staunchly enforced tradition. Each family had their established spot in the lineup; most sat facing the sun but my grandfather and his brother faced the crowd on tall chairs beneath a giant umbrella. There were locker alliances in which two or more families rented musty plywood closets for their chairs and blankets and toys. We had some celebrated infrequent guests, like my dad and Auntie Ollie, who were mocked for their unwillingness to commit every day to the discipline of sitting in the sand. There were constellation families who sat close to our orbit but never succumbed to the dark pull of its gravity. We played with those kids sometimes, but they were not part of our tribe.
The children obeyed communal rules about swimming or venturing out of sight. The snack bar was off limits but the coolers were stocked with sandwiches and dripping nectarines and sour green grapes. We never joined the “bad kids” who dammed the showers to create extensive canal systems, and we rarely rode the tire swings in the playground, but we could usually find a grown up to take us out on the jetties where we cut our feet on the coral and searched the crevices for crabs. The teachers in the crowd played a word game called “Jotto!” with golf pencils and red-printed forms on half-sheet pads. One of them left promptly at four to be home in time for cocktails. We were a superstitious crowd: talk of rain or the coming cold of autumn was strictly forbidden.
Among the crowd was another girl my age and her parents: her American business man dad and her exotic French stay at home mother. Her mother was playful and funny and not like the other moms. She wore swimsuits like ours, without skirts. She ran on the beach with legs toned by daily tennis and taught us to sing Frere Jacques. Once when I cried she gathered me onto her lap and crooned in French until my tears dried in amazement and wonder. She broke out then in crazy laughter, remembering that I was not her own bilingual girl. I was comforted and delighted.
What I remember of the dad is that he did push ups in the sand after he swam, his thick stubby body moving like a piston on powerful arms. And also, how we dreaded the days that he joined us at the beach because we knew that he would tease and torment my sister without mercy.
What did he do? He called her a nickname that made her squirm with discomfort. She hated it with every ounce of her little being. In my mind, I can see her face and body crumpling, her fists closing with useless rage. He spoke to her and she shrank; right in front of us she was diminished by his disregard.
When I think of this man now, thirty years later, I want to hit him. I want to get very close to his face and use my self defense voice to tell him what I think of a grown man who makes fun of a little girl. I want to tell him that the thought of his laughter at her impotent tears makes me physically sick and I wish I could puke on him to give myself some relief. I want to tell him that I will never sit with him on the beach again, that I will move my family away from him and will not allow him to speak to us if he cannot demonstrate respect and restraint.
But he is dead. And my sister is not a little girl, she is a grown up woman with a very strong voice and a baby of her own. And I am not her mother. I am mother to a different little girl.
But I wonder about all those women who witnessed this man’s behavior and did not stop it. The P.E. teacher who taught me to swim, who had a gravelly voice and an imperious manner, who raised her son as a widow and was thought not to suffer fools. Did she tell him to shut up when she saw my sister turned inside-out with discomfort? My own mother and god mother and grandmother: did they not see a man riding rough-shod over a girl’s “No”? Were they not horrified by the implicit lesson: You might say “No,” but if he is bigger, or stronger, or older, or more persistent, he doesn’t have to listen. He can do whatever he wants and you can’t stop him.
Was it fear of loss or conflict—or the loss implicit in conflict—that kept them from putting an end to it? In the white knight fantasy I see my mother packing her bags and storming off. But then what? What of the clan and the annual lobster bake? What of my sister and me crying that we haven’t had our last swim of the day, that we are mid-game with our friends and have yet to empty our grandfather’s cooler of cold, sweet melon and salami sandwiches? How do the summer days stretch out once she has she ruptured the calm veneer of tradition and decorum with her mama rage?
We imagine ourselves fearless in defense of our children. But the sprint down the beach to pluck the errant toddler—tipped forward now, his face submerged, his unbalanced body strangely unmoving—is not the only moment of heroism. Neither the yank on the arm that pulls her out of traffic or even the car seat ever perfectly buckled.
It is the trust in your gut feeling and your willingness to set and maintain boundaries. It is the sentence that Birth Pie taught me, the one she swears I taught her: “That doesn’t work for our family.” It is the loud, clear “No.” It is teaching by example that the bully is wrong. It is the expectation that grown ups will be safe and appropriate with our children or they will be cut off—no matter who they might be. It is the tolerance for loss and conflict that must accompany the ability to stand up for oneself.
It is much, much harder work than it seems.
The five fingers of self defense:
Use your mind.
Use your voice.
Create distance.
Fight back if you have to and with appropriate force.
Tell someone you trust.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Lynne,
I grew up with a similar beach experience. About 10 different families and all their extended families all lined up on the beach in Maryland. Is it not interesting, that of all the great memories you have from childhood, this is the one stand out. I often think adults forget that kids will remember. My oldest daughter recently got scolded by her uncle ,in frount of me, and it was mean and embarrassing the way he yelled at her. Now, keep in mind I am hot headed, this was not my brother but brother in law. I said nothing and told my husband to. It was said to him that is not to speak to my children that way. I think the thing that got him the most was this: i told him, she would remember this and probably not like him forever unless he redeemed himself. Just like you , I remember adults who were mean and hating them. But I also remember very clearly the ones who apologized, I always loved that they treated me like a person. So your story is a beautiful reminder to be nice to kids. They have memories and there is a way to reprimand without humiliation.
What a fascinating story. And the questions it raised – about how our parents may or have not reacted to inappropriate behavior. The memory is a faulty thing – sometimes I wish I had a way to press play and see an incident from my past and be able to evaluate it with my adult eye. So many times my mother’s recollection of an event and mine rarely seem to be on the same page. After reading your account I’m so wanting to hear a memory of yours that someone finally did stand up to that bully.
Sitting here, gobsmacked. This is one of the most powerful things I’ve read in a long, long time.
This is an issue so close to my heart that I almost can’t even find enough words to comment. Thank you.
And isn’t it so strange that such a compassionate woman (one who would cuddle an unknown, hurt child instantly) would choose such a boor of a husband?
First of all I’m so honored to be hosted on Kristen’s blog. Thanks for your genuine and thoughtful comments. I agree with all of you that we are modelling behaviors and creating memories for our kids all the time. That’s why I think we have to be so vigilent as mamas–they are always noticing, learning, remembering.
Jane, I checked in with my mother about this memory. She still feels uncomfortable about how this man treated her kid, and she still doesn’t know how she could have handled it better. She didn’t have the sense of empowerment about her own boundaries to model that for her daughters. She couldn’t tell a man to stop or back off. That terrifies me. I’ve devoted my whole life to practicing these self defense skills and learning how to stand up for myself. Maybe this is why.
Kitch, I’m honored by your comment. And I’ve never understood how that sweet, wild, crazy woman lived with such an ass.
What I will take with me from this beautiful, powerful post is the saying that you taught Birth Pie or she taught you: “That doesn’t work for our family.”
I can already imagine the times when such a simple, yet so complete phrase would be the balm to end an awkward encounter. I can also imagine the times when I will need to say it to myself in order to find the strength to stand up for my kids. And you’re right of course: we have countless opportunities for ordinary acts of heroism.
Thanks again, Lynne Marie, for sharing this piece with us today.
Kristen, I will likely steal this line from you: “we have countless opportunties for ordinary acts of heroism.”
I spoke at a Town Hall meeting on bullying last week and this was my point: if we expect our kids to stand up for themselves and their peers, we have to teach them how. We have to model and rehearse those skills over and over for them. Our kids will be empowered by our example of standing up for them and for ourselves.
It’s yours for the stealing! I won’t even impose a copyright fee. :)
Wow, I was so caught up in the imagery of the sweet nectarines, the sharp coral, the sticky sand, I didn’t see at all where this was going. You wonder how “things” would have turned out differently if one of those adults had stood up to him, had said, “This will not work for our family.” Thankfully your sister managed to find and maintain her own voice and strength as she grew older.
Hi, It’s me, LMW’s spouse, aka Sweetie. After reading both of your pieces, I find that you both are very sympatico writers and I hope you both take that as a compliment. I’m not just saying it because LMW is my spouse, either; I know good writing when I read it. Thanks for swapping.
Hi Liz – Thanks for being here and for reading. Thanks too for your compliment. For a writer, being compared to LMW is high praise indeed!
What a powerful story, incredibly told. I had the same reaction as Kitch about that husband. How did they manage to find each other?
“That doesn’t work for our family” — well said. Keeping that for my arsenal, when the time comes that I’ll need it.
As a shrink I have often noticed this sort of relationship where the secret weakling of a man projects his wounded bird self onto a woman of delicacy, but she also projects her inner bully onto him.
To me this post was some sort of cross between Cheever and Salinger—very well crafted with trenchant feeling and brave authenticity. Beyond the cruelty of unconscious bullies, this also underscores the long-running brutalization of the feminine by the soulless masculine (with those pathetic push-ups on the sand, here it reminded me of Fitzgerald and “Tender is the Night,” the vain preening Americans posturing for each other).
As you say, that man is dead. Long live kindness bred of strength.
Privilege of Parenting–
I have admired your work for a long time now. I’m honored to have you read my work and thanks for the literary compliments! Very thoughtful comments. I always wondered how those two made it work.
As it happens, we know his extended family and there’s a pattern of his boorish male relatives marrying kind and passive women and engaging in assaulting or harassing behavior outside the marriage. What a horror-show! I keep my kid away from the whole mess.