My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper: A Guide to the Less Than Perfect Life (11 page)

Every study you care to name says the same thing: sitting in front of a screen for too long makes kids cranky and fat. Hell, it makes
me
cranky and fat. Reece and Brody get only an hour of electronics a day. Electronics is defined as anything with a screen: watching TV, playing games on the computer
or on my iPhone. If it was up to Laird, all of it would be thrown out the window. Of course, he leaves in the morning; he isn’t the one who has to tell them “no” every fifteen minutes.

We adults check our phones after a meeting and before we get in the car, after we get out of the car and head into the house, after we stir the pasta but before we chop the onions, after we get up in the morning and before we hop in the shower. All these little moments, these little gaps between one activity and another, when you might otherwise enjoy a little daydream or think about a new recipe you want to try or have a thought about a book you’ve read or just look forward to the weekend when you’re going to go snowboarding or hang with a friend, all those moments have been gobbled up by our compulsion to check our devices.

It messes with your head, and I don’t want it for my kids.

So I say no. A lot. And tell me I don’t feel like a shit mom when little Brody, who’s been cooperative all day, has a meltdown in the afternoon and sobs miserably, “I. Just. Want. My. Electronics.”

I often think my real lifestyle role model is Norman Rockwell. Throw on some jean shorts, play in a tree, throw a rock.

Is there anything more beautiful than that?

Why, yes, there is: a children’s birthday party that could never be mistaken for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. One of the things I love about living in our little town in Kaua’i is that the basic requirements for a kid’s birthday party are: kids, cake and ice cream, and presents. It’s a different world in
Malibu. When I take my kid to those parties with the different activity stations, and the clown and the face painters, I can’t help but think,
are you fucking kidding me?

For Reece’s last three birthdays we took her and some pals go-karting. We found a great little place where the maximum speed on the cars can be adjusted down for the kids and up for the parents, so everyone has a blast. All these little kids roaring around the track. Some food, some drinks, and some cake—simple, but still with the sense of an occasion.

Halfway through the last party one of the kids turned in his kart and came over to me; he told me he had to leave early and I thought he’d come to say thanks for the nice time. Instead he said, “So, if you have any gift bags, I’ll take one.”

Seriously? This boy had just spent two hours in a go-kart.

“Listen, you’re seven years old. Your gift bag was getting to drive a car,” I said. “Now get out of here.”

I’m sure his mother is still telling the women at her craft parties what a bitch I am.

•  •  •

A lot of us have confused good parenting with overparenting. We think if we’re in our kid’s faces and business twenty-four/seven, that we’re doing a better job than the moms of yore who told their children they’d better go find something to do or else they’d find them something. (Every person I know over forty has the same story: one day I sighed that I was bored and in the blink of an eye I was pulling weeds or sweeping the floor.)

But even as toddlers and preschoolers, children need to feel as if they own their experiences. They need to be let out in the yard to discover worms and flowers, to pick up a snail, and, yes, to eat dirt. When they’re older, they need to be free to ride their bikes and explore in the neighborhood. They need to be free to make their own discoveries. And by the way, it doesn’t count as a genuine discovery if you stick a caterpillar beneath their noses. Interesting, maybe, but engineered by you, the parent.

We have to be there for our kids. At the same time, we have to get the hell out of the way.

Reece once complained to Laird that he never came to her riding lessons, her ballet or gymnastic classes.

He said, “Do it awhile, then I’ll come.”

He’s not particularly interested in watching her learn how to point her toe. These activities are for her, to try some things out and learn what she likes and what she doesn’t like, to figure out what she excels at, to get to know herself.

Do I expect her to become a prima ballerina or ride a Kentucky Derby winner? Of course not. I’m all for cheering her on, for telling her she can do anything she chooses. But there’s determination and optimism, and then there’s reality. I joke with Reese, “You can do everything, but I can promise you that you’ll never be a professional gymnast, or a professional jockey. You can still ride horses and do gymnastics, but there’s no arguing with physics.” And we laugh about it. She’s the daughter of a six-foot-three father and a six-foot-three mother. She’s only eight and she already weighs ninety pounds.

Reece’s activities are obviously quote unquote enriching, and no doubt kids learn lessons from things they take up in grade school and then lose interest in about the same time they pass their driving tests. But how about activities that are a little stickier when it comes to parental hopes and dreams? How about if you were a tennis player and back in some unlit tennis court of your mind you have a fleeting image of you sitting courtside at some big match (okay, Wimbledon), and your kid is playing in center court, and . . .

I know. We all try not to live vicariously through our children. Still, it’s a tough one, realizing deep in your heart that what your child does is for her, not for you.

Not long ago Reece got the jujitsu bug. She begged me to take lessons. If Reece were a river she’d be one that flows year-round, century in, century out, eventually creating a grand canyon. She does not let up. Just one lesson? Please? Just to see? Pretty please? Just one, on the easiest day it is for you to take me? Preeeeeeeeety pleeeeease?

The girl wore me down. I told Reece I would buy her two months’ worth of classes, but once she started she would need to go until the class was over. Her brief fling with jujitsu is a chance for me to school her about keeping her promises and honoring her commitments. To my mind, that’s my parental duty. I’m a lot less interested in her becoming the world jujitsu champion. Which isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be nice for her to have a black belt tucked into her tool kit.

Learning about dedication and commitment are the main benefits of participating in any kind of sport. I’ve done many
talks at middle schools, high schools, and sports camps and I always say, “Listen, if none of you play in college, it doesn’t matter. You are doing something valuable for yourself right now. The point of doing it is discipline, self-esteem, working with others, and working toward a common goal. All of these things will enhance you.”

Being an athlete also allows a kid the opportunity to gain self-knowledge.

Who am I? What do I need? What makes me happy? I ask myself those questions, and I want to raise children who ask them, too. To be able to answer those questions is to know what is worthy of your time and sweat.

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that life rewards those who work their asses off. Think about the successful people you know. Did they all put in late hours and weekends and eat/sleep/dream whatever it was they were chasing? Even Mozart, a genius and a child prodigy, practiced like a mad fool.

Hard work is humbling. It forces you up against your limitations every time. It keeps you honest. It keeps you human.

•  •  •

My kids are little, so I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think my world would be rocked if one of them announced she decided to go to law school. It wouldn’t raise my opinion of her. I wouldn’t think any more of her than if she said she was going to be a muralist, or a human resources person at one of those corporations where it’s hard to understand just exactly what it is they do.

Throughout my career I’ve done some TV hosting and color commentating. I was good enough that it was suggested I try my hand at sports announcing. But a great announcer is a critic. You have to look at an athlete’s performance and take it apart. If someone hasn’t brought their best game, you have to call him or her on it, and explain how they’re sucking, and why.

I just don’t have that in me. I appreciate people for just being out there doing it. Even if they are stinking up the court, I am happy they are there. We just put emphasis on the winner, but it’s as important, if not more so, just to go for it.

I feel the same way about the things my children do. I will judge them—and yes, we judge our kids, just like we do everything and everyone else—by how hard they work to attain their goals, and by what kind of people they are. Do they have friends? Do they have manners, which is a form of expressing empathy and gratitude?

When Reece invites her friends over to our house, I’d say one in three says “thank you” and brings her plate to the sink after we eat. And I say to Reece, “Who do you think is going to be invited back here? Who do you think I’m going to cook for again?” Of course Reece knows the answer. I tell her that I want her to be that kind of person: the polite one who gets asked back.

There’s a beach volleyball player named Kerri Walsh who’s one of the best players in the game. In 2004 she and her partner Misty May-Treanor won the gold in Athens, followed it up with fifty consecutive match wins, then returned to Beijing in 2008 to take home the gold again and then in 2012, they did it yet again in London. Between 2005 and 2007
she held the AVP records in both hitting and blocking, and in 2007 was named the FIVB’s Best Offensive and Most Outstanding Player. Her rap sheet goes on and on.

Once, during a big tournament, about fifty players were sitting around in the player’s tent and there was a big metal garbage can in the center that had fallen over. No one did anything about it, thinking, I suppose, that someone working the tournament would happen past and pick it up.

Then Kerri strode in, fresh from a match. Spying the garbage can, she picked it up and started refilling it with all the trash that had spilled, the empty cups and food wrappers. The guy who told me this story reported that they were all instantly humbled and embarrassed. Here was one of the best players in history, and is she “Yo, assholes! Look at me, Ms. Three-Time Gold Medalist!”? Nope. She sees what needs to be done and she does it.

Kerri lives not by the code of fame or wealth or even hard-won achievement, but by her own code. If my daughters grew up to be like that, I’d consider myself a success.

I believe in power-parenting. I’m the parent, and I’ve got the power. This is similar to the Golden Rule. I’ve got the gold, so I make the rules.

I’m only half kidding.

I feel as if sometimes we need to say to our children, “Look,
I am in charge. I am the parent. And with that comes huge benefits for you. I am not asking you to be my friend and give me advice. I am not asking you to solve my problems, or clean up after me, or pay my bills, or take me to the doctor. I, on the other hand, am here to I create as much freedom and fun for you as I can, to give you a childhood without worry. But that is not a childhood without duties or responsibilities.”

I am tough and very direct with my children. When I see nonsense, I don’t launch into a big goopy speech about how I understand why they feel the way they must feel, and why they’re doing what they’re doing, and how their father and I don’t believe in whatever it is they’ve just done, but we appreciate why they did it and blah blah blah. Not long ago I was standing outside the market and saw one little girl refuse to share her cherries with her sister. The mother started in with, “I imagine that when I tell your father about this he’ll be disappointed in your decision to make the choice to refuse to share.” Her daughter looked up at her like, “What in the hell are you talking about?”

I just say, “Cut out the nonsense.”

Kids know what you’re talking about.

Part of my attitude reflects my parenting credo, but part of that is just who I am. In all the hubbub surrounding being a parent, we can lose sight of the fact that we’re still exactly who we were before we brought kids into the world.

I’m not a big overexplainer or coaxer or let’s-hug-it-out kind of person. I don’t have that light, effervescent spirit that a lot of mothers have (and which, frankly, I envy). Why would I be someone else with my kids? Why would I want to model
for them the importance of being someone else, fabricated from tips gleaned on the Internet?

Brody, age four, could give a seminar on talking back. Not long ago I let Reece borrow a pair of my stud earrings. She went into the bathroom to use the mirror to put them on and dropped one down the drain. Laird was due home soon, and I thought I’d let him do the honors. Reece, dutifully, got out her markers and construction paper and made several very sternly worded signs warning that no one should enter the bathroom or use the sink.

A few minutes later Laird came home and I told him about the earring and as he opened the bathroom door Brody scurried over and threw her body in front of him. “If you go in there I’m going to smack you in the balls.”

Another mom might have pulled her daughter over and sat her down and said, “Sweetie, let’s talk about why you’re talking like this.” And they would go on to have a conversation about what happened. But that’s another kind of mom. I told Brody to knock it off, that talking to her dad—or anyone—that way was disrespectful.

Of course, I thought it was funny as shit.

When Laird and I had girls, we thought, “Aw! Little girls! We’ll have to protect them.” But by the time both of them were four we thought, good luck world.

•  •  •

I suspect it’s easier for the mothers of easy children to justify the adult, conversational approach to discipline. Maybe if my
girls were less like their father and me, I’d try this tactic, too. Just sit them down for a nice, cozy girlfriend chat about why they shouldn’t pitch fits, pinch and slug each other, break stuff, tell their little girl whoppers, tattle on each other, and all the other stuff kids just naturally do.