An Only Child Doesn’t Have to be Lonely

It’s getting near bedtime, and my son won’t leave our neighbor’s house. “I haven’t played enough,” he insists after spending an entire day with our neighbor’s kids.

An afternoon at the Exploratorium wasn’t enough. Alex had a grand time with Samma, sticking their hands in everything from fog machines and sand art spinners to enormous bubble blowers and beach balls suspended on a cannon of air. As the parent in tow, I felt like I was part of a giant Rube Goldberg machine, chasing my three-year-old and a kindergartener who have enough energy combined to power a steam train.

I got a chance to play Mom to more than one child, and my son had a taste of life with siblings for the day.

Continue… »

The Mom Gene: From Evolution To Revolution

I think about my father’s past as I hear news of Libyan protests. Ensconced in my life as mother, writer, and educator, I’m shielded from the tanks, the shouts for justice, medicine, and mercy in the Middle East. Yet something keeps my gaze on these events.

At six, my father fled his native land, when the Communists took over China. He lived through a time of terror, the Japanese barrage of bombs, the civil war between a growing Communist party and a corrupt Nationalist government desperately holding on to power.

Violence uproots. The violence in my family history compels me towards these stories of revolution. In 1989, the protests in Tiananmen Square captured my attention as an undergraduate at Stanford. I joined sympathizers in marching through the streets of San Francisco, cheered by drivers waiting patiently for the throng to pass. I didn’t know what it was like to live without democracy, food, or safety, as my father once had, but I knew the lasting impacts of war on my father’s family. Continue… »

Tiger Mom…Take a Break

You’ve likely heard about Amy Chua’s ‘tiger mom’ parenting, which has aroused waves of indignation, admiration, and just plain ol’ gossip. “She did what to her daughters when they didn’t practice their music?”

I don’t need my three-year-old child to excel at piano but I do marvel at her ability to sell books. What concerns me is that Chua doesn’t see beyond the blinders of her social class and privilege.

It’s easy to attribute this parenting style, Confucian in some ways, draconian in others, simply to cultural background. As a Chinese American daughter, I’m familiar with the truisms.

My father (born in the year of the Tiger) thought an A wasn’t good enough if the teacher could give an A+. I didn’t go to sleepovers or summer camp. Then again, growing up in an alleyway in Chinatown, I didn’t get to celebrate Christmas, go to movies (missed out on E.T. and Star Wars) or participate in sports. I was practically the only Chinese American in my freshman dorm that didn’t have piano lessons as a child. One suburban friend had an enviable life, a full schedule of music and dance lessons, and a troupe that made it to the nationals. And their family celebrated Christmas. Continue… »

In Daddy’s Hands

A year ago, my husband’s health took a turn for the worse. He hasn’t been the same since, and neither has our family. Andrew can’t use his hands to do things most of us take for granted; for months he has been unable to work, drive a car, or perform most household tasks. The mothers I’ve talked to get it; “Oh, you have to do all the work.” I bemoan the fact that he’s an enlightened husband turned backward and at times helpless by his condition.

I’m plagued by the urgent questions: What will we do if his disability claim is denied after public benefits run out? Now that my first novel is coming out, what if I wind up having to defer my dreams? And then I wonder what our son Alex will grow up thinking about Dad.

I enjoy roughhousing with Alex; it’s a mixed blessing to be the preferred playmate of a 2 ½-year-old. Continue… »

My Son is a Genius!

It’s every parent’s wet dream – if mothers had such nocturnal moments – to know that your child is smarter than the average pooh bear. When Alex was two months old, he spoke his first word, “Okay.” That morning I had placed him on the bed, back when he was an agreeable pillbug who hadn’t learned to roll over.

“Mom’s going to be back right away, okay?”

And he chirped right back, “Okay.”

Not just once that day, but two more times. There, I had scientific proof, 100% positive results with no chance of error, that my kid had spoken English back to me. My son was a genius. And being an agreeable little guy, he wasn’t saying “no” like those ornery toddlers. My boy was answering in the affirmative, a “yes” man in the best sense of the word.
Continue… »

Grow Up, Please!

It’s late on Monday, the dreaded Garbage Night. I’m marching down the front steps with a week’s worth of dirty diapers at arm’s length. Eight trips later, I see the neighbor’s kid hauling their trash out to the bins. My two-year-old, Alex, in the meantime, is creating more trash, shredding junk mail all over the couch while Dad is watching his favorite show “Deadwood” on DVD. What’s wrong with this picture?

I wish my Alex could do things like the neighbor’s kid. Ten-year-old Jason is a miniature man, with a spare tire around his middle that could save someone from drowning, but I’m telling you, the kid can carry garbage. Continue… »

Dreaded Dermatologist Can’t Spot What a Mother Sees

I know my way around San Francisco’s 450 Sutter, an art deco building that I frequently haunted in my drug-peddling days with Parke-Davis. On every floor you’ll find doctors’ offices stacked like building blocks, and a stream of patients with bad teeth, intestines, hearts, arteries, bad breath, poor eyesight, permanent acne.

In the dermatologist’s office I fill out a form for my son, Alex, who at six months has been afflicted a mosaic of skin problems — baby acne, hives, heat rash, and cradle cap. I sit cross from two men, one stout and dark, the other tall and stiff, each menacing in their quiet way.

“Mr. Alexander Lovett,” the medical assistant announces, looking down at my baby. I’m embarrassed by the white flakes of cradle cap, the tender pink spot on his temple that he keeps rubbing every morning with his fists. How do I tell the lady that he’s really a congenial baby that I couldn’t have passed on any of my compulsive tendencies to my little cherub?

Continue… »

Ode to Hillary

My son pooped on you.

No, not at the polling place or the preacher’s stand. As a six-month-old he pooped on a cotton outfit with your portrait in front, etched in blue. I washed his clothes, but left that pumpkin-colored stain untreated. Call it superstition, but I wanted to leave a spot of imperfection, like the Japanese do with raku pottery. I voted for you in the primaries. 

I believed in you, Hillary.

Continue… »

It Won’t Last Forever

The babysitter took our son, Alex, to Land’s End, where vendors stopped hawking at tourists to coo at the baby. “You should enjoy ‘em while they’re this age, because it won’t last forever,” they told her.

She found that amusing. Wait a minute, I thought, that’s our kid you’re talking about. We’re paying her fifteen bucks an hour to spend a gorgeous day with our kid while I’m dusting off files to do the taxes.

I wolfed down some lunch while she leisurely strolled the five blocks back to the house. My boobs were bursting, and threatened to stain the W2s and 1098 forms. They make sure I’m never late: better at reminding me to be on schedule than the tax man.

Continue… »

Doubting Damn Doula

I clutched my belly, steeling myself for the next wave of pain. “Your uterus is practicing,” the doula said. Her gut and experience told her that I was having prodromal labor.

I’d never heard of prodromal labor. Sounded like something that pregnant dolphins went through. And it sure felt to me like labor, the kind that came after nine months of carrying a little joey inside your body, in a really big pouch.

Besides, her gut wasn’t having a conniption fit – mine was. The contractions were coming on like clockwork, every – five – minutes – I – could – barely – catch – my – breath – and – and – find something to focus on besides the pain.

Continue… »