If God Is Dead, Does Love Exist?

“I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t love you,” he said. I hung up the phone to the sound of an intruder pounding at my door, which was actually my heart. My chest thudded with all the ways I have been unlovable, will always be unlovable. The room was still and I heard a squawking flock of wayward birds high above my house, no doubt lost on their journey south.  “Alone,” they cried. “Alone!” Alone! Alone!”

God is dead. I believe that there is some force in the universe greater than us which unites us, but the existence of a divine creator who gave us the world, and sustains it with his love, is a delusion. If God is alive, why has no one ever seen him? As they say, pics or it didn’t happen.

Richard Dawkins claimed belief in God is a “virus of the mind” and it is no more evident than when a predatory virus of the body claws through the world unchecked. We are pivoting to a new normal. Societal disparities are glaring as some are rendered homeless, while others stand on social distance markers at the Mercedes dealership. Love in the time of Covid is less about connection and community and more about Amazon prime, a roomy house and a 30-pack of Charmin.

With so much free time, how can one accomplish anything meaningful?

But there is tequila and weed and transcendent sex and men who make you feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, minus the part where she’s a hooker, although all relationships are transactional in nature; it’s been proven that men who help with the housework get more sex hashtag #choreplay. There is the regal feeling of being helped out of a car and dreamy mid-afternoon naps and laughter and Netflix and cuddling and motorcycle rides and idyllic afternoons on a boat.

But that is not love.

Love is a vast, mysterious ocean that inexplicably swells and subsides. I wish I could say I disdainfully quoted Lizzo lyrics to him and hung up, but being told I was unloved dissolved the protective steel cage around my heart. A cacophony of voices rang through the night, bombarding me with stories of profound loss and rape and neglect and abandonment, stories that proved my unlovability and I might have mistaken the stabbing pains in my chest for cardiac arrest had I not known the familiar symptoms of a panic attack.

I considered going to the hospital to quiet the pain with a tranquilizer drip, but the emergency room is not an option when God is dead and there’s a global pandemic. I could not bring myself to look into the face of an exhausted, overwhelmed ER doctor draped in personal protective equipment and tell him, “I am here because I am unlovable, because God is dead and I am scared, and by the way, are you single?”

Nietzche pronounced God dead on arrival. As did Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kant. Victor Hugo said “God is dead, perhaps” in Les Miserables, which despite being the world’s longest running musical, questions the existence of God, which challenges the reality of love, for which I have no definitive proof as I’ve been known to stay in a relationship simply because the man had tickets to Hamilton.

Philosophers deny the existence of God, scientists deny the existence of love, renowned psychiatrists blame everything on sex and our genitalia. God, sex, love and death. God is the presence of love, sex is the opposite of death, and everything is “on account mother had narrow vagine,” according to Freud, or maybe that was Borat, but still.

“Does he know how funny and smart and cool you are?” my best friend asked when we first started dating. But cool is not currency. End-of-days currency is food, bullets and sex, none of which are love. I was only a five-month pit stop; a red-headed lusty oasis in a desert of dehydrated blond Republicans. I was not to be taken seriously. I knew that immediately upon seeing pictures of his last girlfriend, a beautiful, sexless blonde Golden Girl, the picture of stylish Upper East side alimony in impeccable Chanel suit and sensible designer shoes. He regularly reminded me how much money he had spent on his ice queen, buying her extravagant designer purses in which she delicately carried his balls.

What on earth was he doing with a neurotic New York Jew sporting tattoos and a sordid past; a writer, a dreamer, potty-mouthed and unfiltered, ready to start a revolution if only she could find a clean bra, one of those women still trapped in her favorite decade of music (the 90’s), clad in leather leggings and thigh-high boots?

Love is a mysterious monolith and perverse in its inexplicability; he had proposed to his most recent ex despite the fact that she was unkind and demeaning, and that her favorite part of his body was his wallet. Maybe it was because she threw cozy dinner parties for the local chapter of the NRA, hobnobbed with other uptight rich people, shopped at Saks, wintered in Florida, acted like summer and walked like rain. Someone remind her that there’s time to change, hey he-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y.

My dentist, who unofficially doubles as my shrink, asked, “Did you want to grow old with him?” and I resisted the urge to smarmily answer that at 10 years my senior, he was already there. Instead, I shrugged helplessly. I can only say I was magnetized to his tall strong body and spending time with him was the highlight of my week, but is that love? I have no clue and was suddenly stingingly jealous of this man’s absolute certainty of what love feels like and that he did not feel it for me.

COVID 19 is undoubtedly the Angel of Death, proof of God’s demise. So is people refusing to wear masks in viral hotspots, and racist YouTubers getting rich off of teary eyed apology videos, or maybe God is just a dick. And storybook love is something we’re brainwashed into believing during the halftime show at the Superbowl.

Scientists know that love is an explosion of chemicals in the brain, stimulating hormones and creating euphoria. But to be in love is the willingness to want to be in love, and despite all that activity in the limbic systems of our frontal lobes, he was not in love with me because he did not choose me.

Love does exist. For me, soulmate love is an ocean too big and mysterious to contain, so I hold a small part of it in my pocket and call it joy. Love exists because something keeps me luminous, and aside from my ten-step Korean skincare routine and all of the men who in this most absurd of times keep texting me for dinner dates (God may be dead but you gotta eat, right?), something keeps me in the light and it might just be that I passionately love myself.

And God is not dead; perhaps, it is only that we have stopped believing in Him, or even more likely, He has stopped believing in us.

How are you all holding up in this crazy time?
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

How to Destroy Your Writing Career

 

It was 102 degrees the day the air conditioning crapped out on our tour bus. Mid August, somewhere between West Virginia and North Carolina.

20 writers trapped on a scorching hot bus. We drank to block out the oppressive heat. We were off the next day, so we showed no restraint. Not that we ever showed the slenderest thread of restraint.

It was the 90’s. We were in our 20’s. Do the math.

 

In the mid-90’s, spoken word poetry was HOT. The in-your-face nature of it, attacking gender, racial and economic social inequity, was perfect for that time. Which is why Perry Farrell decided to add a Third Stage to Lollapalooza for spoken word.

 

Slam Poetry

Slam Poetry is spoken word on steroids. A brutal poetry competition where judges quantify your talent with numbers on cardboard signs.

The New York City slam venue was a ruthless arena. You were heckled mercilessly the minute you stepped on stage, and if you wanted to stay on, you’d better be good.

I was.

Skinny little girl with a big fat mouth. I was featured in a documentary about the NYC slam scene and won a highly coveted spot on that ‘94 tour.

 

Lolla’s 1994 lineup was stellar. Nirvana. Green Day. Beastie Boys. George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars. Cypress Hill. A Tribe Called Quest.

In April, Kurt Cobain put a shotgun to his head, and Nirvana was replaced by The Smashing Pumpkins.

A massive let down.

 

Tequila at Twelve

We opened the Third Stage at noon, blasting War’s “Low Rider.” I got things going, dancing onstage in my Lolla uniform, daisy dukes and combat boots. By 12:30, I was pouring bottom shelf tequila into the mouths of teenage babes from the jug I kept behind the sound booth.

We performed several sets of poetry a day. Our teen audience, enraptured by the spoken word scene, stalked us between sets, asking for autographs. It was heady stuff.

 

The downside was, the Third Stage was sponsored by MTV. We were expected to run moronic crowd participation skits, like “The Dating Game” and “Oprahpalooza.”  As our youthful rebellious response to the commercialism of MTV we decided to jack up the skits.

 

Girl-on-Girl Porn

I ran the Dating Game.

I’d pick an extremely hot, intoxicated Lolita to be the “Bachelorette” on stage, along with three guys. Right before she chose one, I’d yell, “Forget these losers! Pick ME!”

Then I’d start making out with her. I had a built-in radar that always found a girl who dug it. We’d end up rolling around on the stage, grinding and groping each other while the audience went completely bat shit crazy.

Word got around that there was live girl-on-girl porn on the Third Stage at 4:00. By mid-summer, it was one of the hottest tickets on the tour.

Thank God there were no responsible adults around.

 

 

 

Rock Stars and Poets and Bears, Oh My

The cool thing about Lollapalooza is that everyone, musicians, roadies and poets, milled about backstage together, ate together, partied together. Gradually, most of the musicans came to the Third Stage to check us out. As the tour wore on, some of us collaborated. A horn player from Parliament Funkadelic dug me and my poetry. He would come to the Third Stage to accompany my performances.

The dark, rich sounds of his trumpet wove around my words, letting the audience feel both the story in my poetry, and the story of how he and I felt about each other. Those seductive, late afternoon renditions of my spoken word were the pinnacle of my performing career.

For many, for most, it was the summer of love.

 

Okay. It was a total fuck fest.

On tour, everyone’s single. You never knew which musician would wake up on our bus, crawling out of the coffin-like sleep bunks. I won’t name names. I’m a star-fucker, not a name-dropper.

 

 

Some of my favorite tour moments took place after we closed the third stage at 6:00.

Every evening, I raced across the venue to Main stage to catch Parliment Funkadelic and worship at the altar of George Clinton. Clinton was an icon who dominated my R&B project girl childhood. I don’t get stupid about musicians, but I’d watch the P. Funk All Stars from backstage and fangirl the fuck out.

 

After, we’d, head to the Beastie Boys’ trailer where they set up a basketball court outside and played as their pre-show warm up. My horn player played against them every night. The Beastie’s were dope white boys from Queens, and I was fond of them, but I took perverse pleasure in watching my horn player stomp their asses across the court.

We drove through the night to the next city. No showers, no sleep, no exercise, no healthy food. Touring was grueling, so we bolstered ourselves with alcohol and drugs. We only checked into a hotel if we played the same city for more than a day. Then we had the luxury of a shower, but still, no one slept. With all of us set loose at a hotel for the night, neither did any of the other guests.

I chronicled the tour by talking into a hand-held tape recorder which I carried with me everywhere. I have the entire experience on tape. I recently moved, and unearthed the whole collection of cassettes.

I can’t bear to listen to them.

 

—

Returning Hero

I came back to New York victorious.

Clips from interviews and performances had been splattered across MTV. We had crossed over, melded performance poetry with rock and roll.

One MTV news clip was 10 seconds of me, my flaming red, 90’s hair bigger than my body, standing on the Beastie’s basketball court. All full of myself, and lots of tequila, I proclaimed “Spoken word is ROCK AND ROLL POETRY!” At the moment, my horn player stole the ball from Ad-Roc and made a running layup, and I screamed, “That’s what I’m TALKING about!”

It was played repeatedly.

I had offers to do articles. Books. I had performances scheduled. My phone rang incessantly. Managers wanted me. Agents wanted me.

Unfortunately-

I had acquired a bad habit. Without the tour, without the whole carnival of lights, sound and music…

My 10 seconds of fame so overwhelming, I could not handle it…

Or knew I couldn’t sustain it?

Something.

I lost myself.

 

I missed deadlines. Blew off performances, or showed up so high on smack, I’d stumble through a shit show and think I was spectacular.

I pulled the phone out of the wall, for days at a time. Heroin makes you antisocial.

A popular female journalist (I’m not going to say her name; she’s still around) interviewed me for a downtown New York City weekly newspaper (yes, that one). I showed up high, junkie girlfriend in tow. To the bemusement of the journalist, we spent the interview nodding off, waking up to bicker about my writing, the meaning of art, and who used up the last of our drugs.

The photographer snapped a picture of me asleep at the café table, coffee cup raised to my lips. Instead of writing about the spoken word movement, the journalist focused on downtown druggie nihilism masquerading as art. She made me the poster child for 1990’s drug-addled self-sabotage in a hatchet piece called “How to Destroy Your Writing Career.”

They never ran that story. I faded, mercifully, into obscurity.

 

—

Most of the poets I knew from that tour are successful writers.

I never discuss it. People who know me today don’t even know it ever happened.

Maybe it didn’t.

 

 

When I first wrote this story in 2013, I ended it with an homage to the genius of Kurt Cobain. I quoted “All Apologies” and loftily asserted that I needed to forgive myself for squandering my opportunity.

Five years later, I see the truth. The story that journalist wrote IS my story. I am a master of self sabotage. I fear success more than failure.

There is nothing else in the world that I want to do more than write, yet it brings up every fear I have about not being good enough.

I wrote an essay about mental illness, and when I was honored for that essay at a writing conference, I was ironically so anxiety-ridden I never left my hotel room.

Paradoxically, I see myself as both magnificent and inadequate. If I achieve any level of success as a writer, it creates such cognitive dissonance that I need to massage my psyche back into alignment with drugs, with sex, with bad decisions.

I am the Queen of Bad Decisions – I may go down, but it will be in beautiful fiery flames of my own making. I get to control my own failure, rather than let it blindside me.

The book that lives inside me goes unwritten. Surely I would be exposed to the writing community as a fake. The belief that I am a fraud is called Imposter Syndrome. It (along with massive Daddy Issues) has bought my therapist her beach house, but I’m certain it will be rooted in me until the day I die.

 

Here I feel safe. Here, I have a small, fiercely devoted group of followers, and your love for me and my words does not scare me. It’s a sweet miracle that every time I hit “Publish,” there you are.

Thank you.

Talk to me.
All this self-awareness has given me a giant migraine, but I’m listening.

How I Lost My Mind Online: Part One

“Dear Samara,

Would you mind masturbating and mailing me your panties?”

Sincerely,
Franklin Horshucer, Serial Killer

I could hear his heavy breathing. He sounded like Darth Vader with a sinus infection.

 

—-

I had another blog before this one. I didn’t write anything on it. Me and writing – we don’t mix.

When I write, bad things happen. I get addicted to heroin. Stuff like that.

 

I did leave lots of comments, and started receiving emails from bloggers. How the hell did they get my email address?

Most of the emails were creepy. I ignored them.

Wait. What’s this?

“Dear Samara,

May I email you privately? Only if you don’t mind. If you do, I promise never to bother you again. But I am a Nice Guy and I do not breathe like Darth Vader.”

Signed,

Nice Guy

 

I liked him. He was a good writer, and so sweet. The one time I actually wrote something, he told me I was “brilliant.”

His email I answered.

 

We emailed back and forth constantly, all day.

I had a new friend. Someone who considered me a REAL WRITER, a moniker I hadn’t felt entitled to in two decades.

My entire life changed.

I was energized.

The Ex’s ongoing battle for alimony, my bankruptcy, my best friend with cancer, my son’s draining special needs…

I felt like I could conquer anything. After 20 years, I was a writer again!

And then –

Abruptly, radio silence. After a month of 50-plus emails a day.

I panicked. What had I done wrong?

 

 

I realized how lonely I was.

I never thought of myself that way. Constantly surrounded by people, I craved more alone time than I got.

What I didn’t know was how much I needed to connect deeply with another human being; to feel special and important. All this attention lavished on me brought something dead inside me back to life.

And this fierce longing for connection, awoken and now unfulfilled –  was brutal.

 

—-

In 3 days I was headed to Boston to take care of my best friend, my old college roommate, after her mastectomy. Just before I left, my cousin called me with tragic news.

My favorite uncle was dead. And I would have to miss his funeral, to take care of my friend.

My uncle. The only connection I ever had to my father.

I was unabashedly his favorite niece. He never tired of bragging about me.

For 40 years, my uncle fed me anecdotes of his beloved older brother – the father I never really knew.

Now, there would be no more stories of him, ever. All that remained of him was buried under 6 feet of cold earth.

At a funeral I wasn’t even able to attend.

 

—-

 

From Boston, I emailed Nice Guy. I was desperate to have my writing friend back.

A day went by. Two. Three days later, he sent me a brief, dismissive email

I never heard from him again.

—-

 

Home.

Exhausted. Confused. Grief stricken.

I was fragmenting. My past and present were colliding.

I checked in on Nice Guy’s blog. He’d found new favorites to fawn over.

I racked my brains to understand why I’d been discarded, until I realized –

He had found out

the truth.

I was no writer. I couldn’t even sustain his interest for more than a month. .

It was 1994 all over again.

I relived the horrendous mess I’d made of my life. I stopped sleeping. Judged myself ruthlessly.

I spent my days drifting through “The Land Of Horrible Ways I’d Fucked Up My Life.”

Welcome back. So good to see you again.

Would you like some drugs?

—-

 

My best friend got the pathology report back from her surgery.

“What do you mean, Stage 3 aggressive? You said Stage 1!”

She answered me patiently, as though I were the sick one. “Yes. But there was another lump in the lump they removed.”

“What does that even MEAN?”

It just meant she was much, much sicker than we thought.

—-

 

I came home one afternoon to find Little Dude crying bitterly. The Ex had kicked him.

My son’s favorite hobby is torturing us. But-

DO. NOT. HIT. MY. CHILD. 

 

During a session with Little Dude’s absurdly overpriced ADHD therapist, I suggested to my husband that he learn to cope with our son without putting a foot up his ass.

Dr. Interloper said, “You kicked your son?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to have to report you to Child Protection Services.”

The Ex handled it well. Shouted that I was a cunt, flung the car keys at me and stormed out of the room.

I waited for the inevitable fallout, walking around with a bruise on my cheek from where the keys had landed.

Just like old times.

—-

 

The next night two social workers appeared in my driveway. We passed inspection with flying colors.

A few days later, the call came.

I was under investigation.

 

They’d asked if there had ever been any domestic abuse in our home.

I lied and said there hadn’t been. I didn’t think it through. I couldn’t think straight about much at all. Sleep deprived and depressed, I was too busy floating around in my failed past.

CPS found police records of emergency room visits and a restraining order.

What else had I lied about?

They informed me that, for the time being, he could stay in my custody.

 

I stopped breathing when they said those words.

 

This isn’t happening.

Please tell me this isn’t happening.

 

They arranged to interview his teacher.

The guidance counselor.

His pediatrician.

His dentist.

His motherfucking dentist.

I wondered how far back they would investigate. Dear God, the things they could find if they poked around enough.

 

 

I called the case worker. I groveled. Where my kid is concerned, I’m not above groveling.

I dialed her office. “I was the Class Mom 2 years in a row.”

Called again. “Did I tell you I run the PTO Trunk or Treat every year?”

I stayed up all night, searching through boxes of photos. Tears streamed down my face as I looked for evidence that I was a worthy mom.

I found pictures of the party we threw when my son started kindergarten. We had invited 22 kids we never met, and their parents, to our home for a “Welcome to Kindergarten Party.”

Little Dude and I had painted a banner that read:

WELCOME CLASS OF 2022!

At 2 am I texted the case worker the picture.

It was an office number and it didn’t go through.

I texted it over and over again, all night, anyway.

—-

 

I had constant pain in my chest. I was sure it was my heart breaking.

It turned out to be bronchitis.

 

The investigation continued.

I was reliving the past, only the nightmarish version where you lose your child, instead of your self-respect.

One night I had such stabbing pains in my chest, they shot all the way through to my back. I couldn’t breathe.

I thought, “This is what Kurt Cobain must have felt like right before he shot himself. Utter heartbreak.”

And then I fainted outside the supermarket, and the shopping cart kid called an ambulance.

 

The stabbing pain was pneumonia.

I spent 4 days in the hospital.

I missed my son’s 10th birthday.

 

Despite that, my kid still thinks I’m pretty great. He’s upstairs, sleeping.

I’m going to go up and kiss his sleepy little head when I finish this.

CPS decided I was an okay mom, after all.

 

—-

A fleeting cyberspace connection. Meaningless.
But what if you’re brand new to the online world?
And you naively assume every virtual friendship is as valuable as its real life analogue?

On each end of the wires is a living, breathing human being with a past and a present. And an ill-timed “meaningless” encounter might shake something frighteningly loose. Something that rolls around inside of you like a stray bullet, and damages a vital organ.

Your heart, maybe.

And you bleed out.

 

 

The Internet is a Rogue’s Paradise. People act without consequence, because they can.

I shut down that blog. I wanted no part of it.

 

Obviously, this wasn’t the end of my story.

To Be Continued…

 

Have you ever had an online experience like that? Do people treat online friends differently?
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

 

Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter .

I Gave My Uber Driver a Hand Job

 

My BFF Troublemaker and I spend way too much time talking about sex.

We have pretty much the same issues regarding the procurement of it. We’re both single moms, who do NOT want to be in any kind of committed relationship.

Which is not to say that we want cheap meaningless sex with randos, although that is surprisingly difficult to find in the suburbs.

We’re also not into online hookups, since neither of us wants to end up with a serial killer who has oral sex with our severed heads.

But we know lots of single chicks who have all the zany exploits we used to once have.

When she told me the story of her girlfriend who gave the Uber driver a handjob, I laughed like a hyena. I thought it made a great title for a story, even though it wasn’t mine. As a matter of fact, this was supposed to be published HOURS ago, but every time I try to proofread it, I look at the post image and start laughing till I cry.

It’s click-baity. I’m well aware of that.

 

A recent story went viral, a story whose title implied that a woman divorced her husband because he left dishes in the sink. Because I’ve read this blog before, there was nothing very interesting about it. It’s pretty much the same story this blogger has been writing for years.

It’s all about how men are the real reason marriages fail; stupid, stupid men who just don’t understand that women want, no NEED, you to put your dirty clothes in the hamper in order to keep our marriages alive.

The title was total click bait. He admits that isn’t why his wife left him.

Kind of like me titling this story “I Gave My Uber Driver a Hand Job” when that never happened.

 

The blogger purports himself to be some kind of self appointed expert on how to help people not get divorced.

Yes, I know he is preaching from his exalted place of “now enlightened” male. What’s REALLY interesting about this story, is the way he behaves in his comment section. EVERY differing opinion sends him in a tail spin of page long responses defending his position, insisting that he is RIGHT. That leads me to speculate about the person he is in a relationship.

And then, in a ploy to come off self-aware and oh-so-endearing, he even admits to being incredibly self defensive. It’s the relationship version of an Escher painting. You go round and round until you finally just hang a tire around your neck, fill it with gasoline, and light yourself on fire.

Men. WE DON’T CARE HOW AWARE YOU ARE OF ALL THE STUPID SHIT YOU DO.

WE NEED YOU TO STOP DOING IT.

You know. BE THE CHANGE.

Otherwise, you’re just going to spend the next decade driving some poor women insane, by acting like an asshole and THEN owning up to it.

 

I also completely disagree with the premise of the article. I’m not going to comment on his blog because I don’t want THE WRATH OF BLOG unleashed at me. If I want to engage in pointless debates, I’ll call my Ex husband.

I personally am guilty of doing things that drove my Ex nuts; would, in fact, drive many partners nuts. For example, I often forgot to check in with him if I wasn’t coming home after work.

It drove him crazy. It often worried him. And I TRIED to remember to text him and let him know. The fact that it was super important to him should have motivated me to remember.

But I live in my head. I get so absent-minded, that try as I might, I STILL sometimes forgot. It was NOT a symptom of my lack of devotion to the marriage. It was more about the fact that I’m a space cadet, combined with how independent I was used to being, prior to the marriage.

Life is much too precious and complicated for people to view dishes as a symptom of deeper issues. The sink’s dishes are the sink’s problem.

—

WE INTERRUPT THIS STORY FOR A MOMENT OF FULL DISCLOSURE

I’m the first one to admit, always have, that who I am in my blog is not 100% who I am in real life.

Let me state for the record: The Samara on this blog is a version of me. It’s not fully who I am. I have met many, many online people in real life, who can attest to the fact that I am only part bad ass. In fact, I intend to write a story soon that reveals some of my worst flaws.

HOWEVER. I do not devote my blog to “How to Dress like a Grown Up.”  “How To Raise Your Tween Without Calling Him a Douchebag.”

I know not of these things.

—

 

The most interesting thing about his article was a comment someone left. She wrote that not only was it a click-baity title but also, the author knows his audience and it was an article designed to make women swoon.

YES SO MUCH THIS. The blogging world is filled with the walking wounded, most of them women. And when you finally find a man who writes all about how stupid men are, how culpable they are in divorce, it’s swoon-worthy material.

Girls – read the comment section! That’s who you’re going to be fighting with at Olive Garden.

 

 

I love click-baity titles. I try to use titles that will draw people in.  No, I DID not give an Uber driver a hand job. The only time I ever used Uber, I was in Portland with my 12-year-old. That would have been fucking awkward, as well as scarring him for life.

 

 

However, Troublemaker’s friend DID give HER Uber driver a handjob. It was quite the story.

Sorry, pervs. It’s not that kind of blog.

What do you think of click bait titles?

Is leaving dishes in the sink sometimes just LEAVING DISHES IN THE SINK?

Did you ever give an Uber driver a hand job?
Talk to me, I’m listening.
Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so I can have friends without leaving the house.

I Make My Kid Do Homework In the Summer

By the time he was seven, my kid would tell his little friends “I do homework in the summer because when I grow up, my mom wants me to be able to compete in a global economy.”

I’m THAT mom, the one who questions her kid as to why he got that one A, when all the rest of his grades were A pluses.

 

I grew up in one of the worst housing projects in NYC. I’ve been able to forge ahead partly because of my intelligence and sense of humor, but undeniably because of my project girl survival skills.

My kid is soft. Thank God, he’s a soft suburban kid who never has to worry about gunshots in the playground. He lacks survival instincts because he doesn’t NEED them.

What if life takes a giant dump on him?

I can’t give him street smarts by dropping him off in my old neighborhood, like a Hunger Games arena, and see if he’s still alive at the end of the day.

I have no way to prepare him for emotional trauma or tremendous adversity.  But ONE THING I can give him – I can teach him to EXCEL at everything he does, particularly academics.

To help him establish himself in a career, I can prepare him to KNOCK OUT ALL THE COMPETITION.

I want him to be THE BEST.

Not just HIS best. THE best.

 

 

I taught him to read early, so he entered kindergarten already reading.  Around that age, I introduced him to numbers. By first grade, I was quizzing him on his time tables while we drove places.

Like most children, my kid initially balked at homework. But I reinforced in him the notion that homework is a priority. At 12, he’s internalized this voice to the point where he does his weekend homework on Friday – so he can enjoy the rest of the weekend.

I make my kid do homework in the summer. I buy him workbooks in math and language arts for the grade he’s entering, and he has to spend a half hour a day on each of them.

There is a documented loss of academic skills in children over the summer. Knowing that, why would I want such an easily preventable thing to happen? Yes, I KNOW summers are for lazy days of barbecues and swimming. I’m not forcing my kid to kneel on rice. It’s an hour a day, people.

 

I’m not a full throttle Tiger Mom, as in the woman who coined the phrase in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Amy Chua’s memoir of raising her two daughters chronicled daily hours of forced music practice, severe restrictions on extracurriculars, bans on social activities like sleepovers, and punishment and shaming if her children failed to achieve her high expectations.

My parenting style is somewhere in the gray area, between “tiger” and “dolphin,” albeit much closer to tiger. I’m a single working mom with sole custody of my son. Dolphin parenting advocates disciplining your child with “creativity and fun.” Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Furthermore, films of dolphins show them ramming baby porpoises to death. Probably because they snapped after trying to “have fun” disciplining their children.

The public loves to rip Amy Chua apart. I think it’s her combative, holier-than-thou attitude, and offensively pretentious tone she assumes in her book. She’s the Asian Ann Coulter, and it’s stylish Left liberalism to hate her. Her exaggerated version of Tiger Mom is more is an example of narcissistic personality disorder. I would never make my son practice his instrument relentlessly for hours, without bathroom or food breaks.

BUT. I did insist he LEARN an instrument, when in fact, he strongly resisted it. Playing an instrument has been shown to have real impact on cognitive abilities.

I also totally dig music, came from a family of musicians, and most importantly, need someone to jam with.

 

I was raised dirt poor; the kind of poor where I feared feeling my feet pressing the inside of my shoes. We couldn’t afford new shoes.
I’m better off than that, but not the kind of success I want for my child.

It’s simple Parenting 101. I want him to have a better life than the one I currently provide for him. He’s already having a better childhood, one that includes love, safety, security, encouragement, attention, real family time and memory-making adventures.

But achieving a higher standard of living than the generation that came before is nowhere NEAR the slam dunk it once was. So, I’m looking to hone his competitive edge.

Yes, he’s smart. Natural talent and innate intelligence, past a certain point, won’t take you far enough without a strong work ethic. At some point the ability to persevere is more important.

 

In America, the idea seems to be that we live in a land of opportunity and if you just follow your dreams everything will turn out wonderful in the end.

Not really.

The world is a hard place. Democracy is a sham and equality of opportunity is a myth. However, if you work hard to distinguish yourself among the pack, you have a better chance of clawing your way into the privileged class of people who can afford to not be enslaved by a soul crushing daily grind to make ends meet.

A lot of money does NOT equal a LOT of  happiness – but SOME money equals SOME happiness. No matter what your values are, being financially comfortable gives you the freedom to do things that struggling financially simply does not.

The problem with all the critiques of the tiger mom parenting style is that they feel Tiger Mom-ing only yields a socially constructed notion of material success. These critics fail to acknowledge “success” by a more accurate definition: growing up to be adults with power of self-determination. This is what money gives you. So deriding the single-minded focus towards “material success” as if it’s inherently wrong is just fashionable new age ethos.

When I came home with phenomenal grades, my mother ONLY looked at the one 97, demanding, “Why is this not 100?” I do not do that. I first congratulate my son on his A pluses. THEN I point to the one A, and demand,”Why isn’t this an A plus?”

That’s what I call Fucking A

 

Unlike Amy Chua I never make my kid feel bad when he doesn’t 100% succeed, because learning to fail is just as important as learning to succeed. I do not want to raise a worker bee who is unable to fix situations that go wrong.

 

 

American parents use the emotional well-being of the child as an excuse for their own laziness in enforcing any sort of discipline and work ethic.

They assume fragility in our children, instead of strength.

My kid is loaded up like a pack mule on the days he has band practice. He has to carry his backpack, laptop, lunch bag and saxophone. Initially, he wanted me to walk him to the bus stop and carry his sax, because that’s what ALL the moms do.

Guess what? Who’s going to be at the other end of the ride, helping him drag all that stuff off the bus, and through the hallways? NO ONE.

So I refused. Instead, I helped him figure out the best way to juggle everything. He feels empowered.

 

And I don’t have to put on pants at 7:10 am. It’s s a win-win.

 

What is your parenting style? Are you a tiger, dolphin, kangaroo? Aardvark?
What do you think of the Tiger Mom style? 
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

 

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