Last Sunday was Mother’s Day, which I was honored to host. After I finished cooking eighteen omelets, gifts and cards were exchanged. My eight-year-old niece had written a poem for her mom, in which she referred to her father, when he was angry, as “Volcanus Eruptus.” Her dad, a loving and devoted father was less than pleased as the crowd burst out laughing—not because he’s a bad father, but because my niece put it so originally and so vividly. Kids tell it like it is, they are mirrors in which we see our raw and unmasked selves. And they are teachers, if we listen and pay attention. So while we all lose our tempers from time to time (and this, I believe, drives the real laughter of anxious recognition, the fear of being “outted” for our bad parenting moments), we all want to retain our equanimity. The point of The Privilege of Parenting is that we are all in this together, and that we do not want to judge each other, but rather support each other to do our best in the full recognition that parenting is both our great joy, but also often our biggest challenge, one that brings out some of our darkest feelings and moments.
The world is a mysterious and wonderful place, and we are all interconnected in it, with or without the web. Just this morning I met my new neighbor Pariva, strolling her lovely little daughter Talia and their also lovely dog, Daisy. I saw that she and another neighbor I’d somehow never met, Naama, were introducing themselves. In the spirit of The Privilege of Parenting, I trod over and risked appearing the strange guy in order to introduce myself and say that I was starting this blog about community and parenting. They were interested (Hi you guys!), and so were many of my friends and neighbors. We are already a community—this blog seeks to help us make it a more conscious and nourishing community.
So in the new age of “Here Comes Everybody,” I’d like to host a sort of blog-party, a big dog party (to reference the masterwork, “Go, Dog. Go!”). So maybe we’ll help each other out, maybe we’ll learn a few things and hopefully we’ll have some fun along the way.
