Valentine’s Day for a married couple with young kids is just like an ordinary day.
Maybe you don’t think Valentine’s Day is that important anyway, so this doesn’t really bother you all that much. But me, well, I’ll take any holiday I can get to call a sitter and spend a night out with Husband so we don’t have to wrestle kids to bed. And, also, so we can enjoy a nice conversation without being interrupted every other second. But mostly so we don’t have to wrestle kids to bed.
But it seems like every Valentine’s Day we have a hard time trying to find a sitter. I know it’s not because we have six kids and it’s definitely not because we wait until Feb. 14 at 3 p.m. to make the call because I never know what day it is (Hey. Parents can hardly keep track of their kids, let alone the day.).
Plus, by the time you pay a sitter for watching your kids, there’s no money left, so you’ll just be walking the neighborhood or reclining the van seats and taking a night nap.
On second thought, that doesn’t sound all that bad.
What marriage looks like with children is not anything like what I expected it would look like. I don’t really know what I expected, exactly. But it wasn’t this Punk’d version of life we find ourselves in today.
Husband and I are happily married, at least most of the time—because happy is a transient state. We always work hard on our marriage, and that’s really what counts.
Problem is, our kids always work hard on our marriage, too.
In case you don’t know (or maybe you’re wondering if you’re the only one), here’s what marriage looks like with children.
Date nights in bed.
Everyone’s too exhausted to go anywhere anymore, so you order in, turn on Netflix’s “The Making of a Murderer” and watch while you eat. It’s like a theater that serves restaurant food, except you can lie down if you want and, also, kids will burst into your room wondering what you’re watching and begging to try a fry and asking why do you get to eat that food when all they had was a sandwich and raw carrots for dinner, and, sometimes, telling you to please turn it down because it’s too loud (what are they, the parents of teenagers?). Or sometimes, instead of watching something, you read together, because it’s enough being in the same room, without saying a single word, enjoying the absolute quiet that comes in the last ten minutes before you fall asleep. Sometimes you just sleep, because when all the kids are finally, finally, finally asleep, who wants to stay up till midnight knowing they’ll be up at the butt crack of dawn to tell you they’re starving and they’re going to die if they don’t have anything to eat in the next split second?
In all honesty, I enjoy the date nights in our room. I’m pretty much the biggest homebody you could ever know (biggest, as in I’d stay home for years at a time if Husband didn’t drag me out, not biggest as in large. Although my kids might disagree.). Husband would go out every night of the week if he could take me with him, but I’m just not that much of a see-the-town kind of girl. I’ve seen it once already. He knew what he was getting into the night he proposed and I refused to go onstage at our local theatre after a beautiful production of “The Nutcracker” ballet and he had to drag me, seething, up the stairs just so he could get down on one knee. Didn’t back out then. Can’t back out now.
Conversation in spurts.
It’s very rare that when my husband and I sit down to have a conversation we actually get to finish it. Even if the kids are all locked outside, someone will come pounding on the door to say that they need to poop or they need us to kiss a bleeding scratch or you should have heard that fart—it vibrated the whole trampoline! So, when you’re married with children, you get really, really good at picking up conversations where they left off. When you’re a parent, one conversation with your spouse can last whole weeks, because sometimes you forget completely what you’re saying when one of the kids knocks your knees out from under you with a “What does it mean to sleep together?”
This is where date nights at home come in handy. When kids are tucked away in bed and dreaming their kid dreams, it’s the perfect time to talk to each other, because no one will come knock on your door. Problem, is, you have to stay awake until all the kids are asleep, and we rarely make it that late.
A fight could last forever.
Remember what I said about those conversations? Yeah, that makes fighting difficult, to say the least. We don’t have any concerns about disagreeing in front of our kids, because we think it’s good for them to have a healthy relationship with conflict (depending on the conflict, of course), and it’s beneficial for them to witness a healthy model of conflict resolution. We have rules about arguing (no name calling, no walking away, no swearing). But if kids aren’t paying the least bit of attention and they walk smack dab into the middle of a fight, asking for some milk because they’re “so thirsty their mouth is dying,” you’ll lose your train of thought before you can even tell them they’re interrupting something important. Which, in some cases, is a good thing, because most of the things we fight about are stupid anyway. Whose responsibility was it to turn on the dish washer? The kids were tardy again today because we slept an extra five minutes? Yes I did tell you this yesterday? Stupid.
Thanks, kids, for interrupting and jolting me back to reality.
Sex is…well.
Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the S word. So let’s just change it, for propriety’s sake. Let’s call it Playing Chess.
You have to know what kids will do to a Chess Game. It’s pretty much what they do to everything they can get their hands on: deconstruct it, little by little. Right in the middle of an epic Chess Game, they will knock on the door to ask what day tomorrow is because they need to know if it’s library day or not, since that changes everything for them tonight. Sometimes you’ll forget to lock the bedroom door, which is usually where you Play Chess, because everyone’s asleep anyway, and some straggler will come bursting in, and you better hope you have some covers to throw over that Chess Game, because they’re going to see some pieces they shouldn’t.ever.see.
Good luck trying to figure out what kind of move you were going to make when they’ve finally gone back to bed.
So, yeah, kids change a lot of things. But you know what they also do? They introduce us to a depth of love and selflessness we may never have known otherwise. Husband and I have grown to love each other more truly and deeply in these years we’ve been sharing the raising of our children. I understand him differently today than I understood him before kids. He understands me differently than he did before kids.
And if all this weirdness is the price we have to pay for a more passionate love all these years later, we’ll surely take it.
Just remember to lock the door before you get out the Chess Board, m’kay?
What did I know of love before the six of you came into being? Sure, I had your daddy, and that was a love deep and wide and long, but it was a love that did not open fully until there was another kind, this tiny little human being kind of love. We were suddenly united in a shared purpose that was far bigger than the two of us, this raising up of a child. And there was an unexpected development to this kind of love: the six of you began asking for stories, and so we began to tell the stories of our youth, some of them stories we’d never heard of each other, because when you know and love someone, you think you know everything about them, though we had never known each other as kids.
So, yes, it was love that brought your daddy and me together, but it was not the same kind of love that now stretches between the two of us. We are more joined than we ever were before. We are more enduring, more resilient, more pliable at the same time. We have been through the hard places every couple wades through, and we have fought through winds and blinding rain and choking seas to come out on the other side holding hands and matching step, because we were fighting for a deeper purpose. We were fighting for all of you.
We know how important it is for you to have a real and lasting example of the work it takes to love.
So many days your love goes unnoticed. It’s not always easy to see. But as I thought about each of you, as I thought of your looks and your smiles and your words, I could see it so clearly, always hiding underneath.
You show your love by bursting into our room when it’s already time for bed, and you just want to give one more kiss. And even though I don’t like having my reading time interrupted, you’re there beside me, sticking out your lips, and how could I not love this interrupting when you’re 9 years old and you’re still bursting into my room to give me a quick kiss? It won’t happen forever, because one day you will be 19, and it’s this that makes me feel the love full and shifting and overflowing in a heart that seems like, most days, it’s on its last beat, because it is not easy, ever, raising six boys to love each other and Jesus and all people, and it’s especially not easy raising a strong-willed one like you who knows exactly what he wants and won’t stop until he gets it.
You show your love by not even noticing the way you move across the library to sit on the arm of my chair while I’m reading The Never-Ending Story, and you’ll put your head on my head, reading over my shoulder, and I’ll put my hand on your back, because you like your back scratched, and even though there’s a timer on this moment, what I really want is for it to last forever, for it to be frozen in time so that I can go back to it when you’re 16 instead of just 6. This moment won’t last forever, of course, and maybe this is what makes it so sweet. Maybe this is what ushers in the overwhelming love that lingers long after the timer has clanged, telling us it’s time to move on to silent reading and that we’re almost done with this night, even though it will be a while before we get you all put back to bed.
You show your love by coming to sit on my lap while I’m telling a story from my childhood, your favorite one, about your aunt and the dark hallway and the way she stumbled over boxes all the way back to the kitchen during a summer storm when all the cousins were sleeping over. You unconsciously play with my hair while I talk. You always like my hair best of all, and you will brush it against your cheek and over your lips and across your nose, because this is your safe place, this place that smells like the very essence of me, even though my hair hasn’t been washed in a couple of days. And I know that this moment is coming to an end, too fast, because you are only 5, and one day you will be 15, and you won’t want to sit on a mama’s lap. So I sit here as long as I can, drawing out that story the best way I know how, and when you laugh at the predictable part, I feel the love welling up and nearly out my eyes, but I blink the wet away, because I don’t want to explain, yet again, about this emotion that always leaks out my eyes. Happy and sad, all at the same time.
You show your love by coming to give me a kiss at the most inconvenient times, like when I’m doing my ab exercises and I’m huffing and puffing because it really hurts and it’s really hard, and you’ll bend over the baby gate and kiss me on the way up, and even though I’m distracted, even though I just want to get through this moment where my abs are on fire and my breath is nearly gone, I remember that this will not happen forever, either, this kissing in the inconvenient spaces, because one day you’ll be 13 instead of 3, and it won’t be so cool to kiss your mom for no reason at all.
You show your love by sneaking up beside me in the not-paying-attention moments and staring at me for a minute, at what I’m doing, at the things I’m writing, even though you’re a year from reading right now, and you’ll ask your billion questions and be genuinely interested in what I’m doing, and even though I feel irritated, because I just need to finish this one thing right now, I know that you will not always ask your questions, that I am not just on a work deadline but I am on a growing-up deadline, because one day you will be 13 instead of 3, and asking your mom questions about her work won’t be so interesting.
You show your love by the smile that could light a whole room when I walk into it and it’s been a few minutes since you last saw me, and you reach for me, always, and you lay your head on my shoulder, not because you’re tired, but because you’re overwhelmed, like I’m overwhelmed, by the love that spurts out your eyes when you’re so relieved to see the face you love, and you will only stay here, nestled in the curve of my neck, for a moment, because it takes only a moment to be fine again, to be ready to face the rest of your day, ready to look around at all your brothers and join their rough play, and I grieve, because I know that this will not last forever, this picking you up and holding you and carrying you to the places that I think might interest you, because one day you will be 11 instead of 1, and I won’t even be able to carry you, and you probably won’t want to see the places I show you, anyway.
There are so many moments I wish would last forever (though there are also moments I’m glad don’t last forever), and it is the knowing that they will not that has reached down into my love, stretched it and folded it around the six of you. You have brought me to the end of myself, and you have jerked me across the line, so that I stand, before you today, a new person who knows a greater meaning of love, the kind of love that says you first and you best and you always. The kind of love that says a day is worth far more than any year. The kind of love that says a moment might, just might, last forever in the folds of a heart.
That’s where I put all these treasures—in the folds of my heart. We live. We grow older. You grow bigger, truer. I memorize the lines of your face, the curves of your ears, the upward tilt of your noses, the color of your eyes, nearly black, green-blue, all the way black, and blue the color of a deep sea. I hug where I can, kiss where I might, attend where I can manage, and what your faces say to me is that I am worthy of love, that I am loved in the same way I love, or maybe just a little smaller depth, since maybe we don’t really know much of this parental love until we have children of our own, because when we’re a kid we know love as safety and warmth and yellow-colored memories, but when we’re older we know that it’s still safety and warmth and yellow-colored memories, but it’s also transformation and identity and hope and breath and knowledge and life.
You have shown me what it means to love. Thank you, my loves. May you, in return, know the deepest of all loves.
In this episode, Rachel talks about Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, a Pulitzer Prize winner in nonfiction, a great resource for parents, her personal problem with birthdays and a new science fiction series she’s currently brainstorming with her husband. About a monkey. And space.
6-year-old: Well, now I know I’m allergic to tomatoes.
Me: How?
6-year-old: Because someone at school had a tomato, and I sneezed when I was sitting beside her.
Me:
6-year-old:
Me: Nope.
9-year-old: Ow! MY EAR HURTS!
Me [looking at his ear.]: Huh. There’s blood. What happened?
9-year-old: We were doing a fight game on the trampoline and I was wearing ear buds.
Me: It’s probably not safe to wear ear buds while you’re jumping on the trampoline.
9-year-old: Do you think I’m a fortuneteller? How did I know someone was going to push me?
Me:
9-year-old:
Me: Your logic. Impeccable.
Husband: Please don’t put LEGOs in your mouth.
9-year-old: Don’t worry. They’re starting to get a bad taste. They taste like rotten eggs.
Husband:
9-year-old:
Husband: How do you know what rotten eggs taste like?
Me: Can you imagine if Daddy wasn’t around? If he just left you?
6-year-old: That would be awesome.
5-year-old: And if you were never around.
6-year-old: Yeah, then we could buy all the things.
Me:
6-year-old:
5-year-old:
Me: Wow. I’m so glad you appreciate your parents.
Me [picking up the baby]: Alright, munchkin. Let’s go change your diaper.
9-year-old: Why do you call him munchkin? Why not dwarf?
Me:
9-year-old:
Me: No words. None. I’m completely out.
3-year-old: Mama, I took a spider toy home. It was a fun toy.
Me: OK. Well, say it, don’t spray it.
3-year-old:
Me:
3-year-old: It wasn’t a spray toy.
6-year-old: I think my dreams have died, because I don’t ever dream at night anymore.
Me:
6-year-old:
Me: Maybe you sleep too hard.
6-year-old: No, my dreams are definitely dead.
One of the most difficult parts of being a parent writer is getting started.
Our kids demand so much time. When they’re young, they require supervision at all times, and they need things constantly, and they demand attention at every turn. The only break in sight, hopefully, is nap time (not so if you have twins).
[Tweet “Kids are not an easy undertaking. Neither is a career when you have kids.”]
But the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the world losing if I am not pursing my writing dream?
And another, like it: What is my family losing if I do not pursue my writing dream?
I’ll tell you what the answer looked like for me. I was losing, daily, pieces of myself. I found myself stuck in a job I hated, because I was under-appreciated and, frankly, taken advantage of, because it didn’t pay squat and it demanded much more than it gave. Besides all that, all I really wanted to be doing was creating my own creative content and pursuing a career that involved poetry and novels and essays on my own platforms. But we had five kids at the time, and it was impossible to find time to pursue anything at all. I hadn’t written in four years, and I didn’t know if I still had it in me, all those stories that had waited once upon a time.
Something that should bring us comfort as parent writers is that no matter how long you’ve been out of writing, you don’t ever lose it. It’s true that practice makes you better, and if you’re working daily on your writing, you’re going to always get better at it. But when you step away from writing for a season—or four years of seasons, like I did—it doesn’t mean you’ve lost all your skill or creativity or stories. We can feel afraid that it might, but it’s a lie. We’ll be as good as we’ve ever been, and we’ll only get better with time.
One night, I told my husband that I needed to sit down and talk things out for a while. He’s a gracious man, so, of course, he agreed. I told him that I felt like I was shriveling up inside myself, like I was not doing what I was made to do. I was made to write. I was made to create. I was made to show the world what lived inside. I loved journalism—it’s probably what gave me the greatest insight into human nature and empathy, not to mention fostering discipline and the ability to make a deadline and keep it—but it was not exactly the dream I carried in my heart. I wanted to be an author. And so we carved out fifteen minutes a day when I could sit and write about whatever my heart wanted. I wrote about family values and, later, turned those early journals into books.
The point is, I had to start at fifteen minutes. I did not have the luxury of time that many writers have, where they could spend days on end simply writing to their hearts’ content. I had to carve out time, and it was not enough time, but it was a start. I was working. I was consistent. I was growing.
We all have to start somewhere. It could be five minutes of writing time, snuck in while the kids are sleeping. It could be fifteen minutes of time when the kids are having “Daddy time” and we’re locked in your room scribbling or typing as fast as we possibly can. It could be whole afternoons of putting fingers to keys and cranking out more words than we’ve ever seen in a whole year. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. Every minute is progress.
People ask me all the time how I got started as a parent writer. Usually this is based on the simple fact that I have six kids. It seems like an impossibility with one kid, let alone six. Mostly because writing expects a commitment, and how does anybody keep a commitment with kids? It’s not easy, but if we really want to get started, we’re going to have to do it. We’re going to have to mark that nap time as time we’re pursuing our passion instead of sleeping ourselves. We’re going to have to engage in a conversation with our spouse about a time that might work for both of us. We’re going to have to commit.
After the staring, it looks different for everyone. There’s no right way to do this writing thing. I start my mornings writing. Others end their days writing. It doesn’t really matter. We have to find what works for us and our family, and we have to do it consistently, over and over and over again. We’ll meet resistance, sure, and sometimes the baby will be sick and sometimes there are other commitments, but if we want to make this writing thing a career kind of thing, we’re going to have to first start. There will always be something else to do—laundry, dishes, playing out back, cooking. That’s not going to go away just because we decide to write. But we’re going to have to prioritize and ask for help and then we’re going to have to sit down and forget it all and create.
Some first steps for getting started as a parent writer:
Step 1: Have a conversation with your spouse.
One of the most important parts of a successful marriage is good communication. Spouses who find a safe place to talk to each other honestly and openly are spouses who will find even greater commitment and trust. Engage in a conversation with your spouse about the ways you’ve been feeling, what you want to do, who you want to be.
If you don’t have a spouse, have a conversation with your children. Tell them you want to start a career as a writer, and you’re going to need them to stay in their beds for at least fifteen minutes after they’re put to bed. If they need something after that, you’ll be able to deal with their needs. Let them know how important it is for you to pursue this dream. Tell them your stories. Invite them in.
Step 2: Get time scheduled on the calendar.
It’s not going to happen if it’s not scheduled. I’m a big proponent for writing everything down on a calendar. This will help, too, if or when the spouse forgets that you’ve agreed upon this particular time as your writing time. It’s there on the calendar. Make a sign for your bedroom door. Let your kids know it’s writing time.
Step 3: Resist resistance so the writing becomes a habit.
Don’t worry if you have trouble the first few times you try. It’s going to take a while to make this writing time a habit. You will meet all kinds of resistance—chores that actually beg you to do them, computer problems, a blank head space. Resistance will do all it can to keep you from creating. If you have trouble getting started, write about your day.
[Tweet “The simple habit of writing will virtually eliminate “writer’s block.””]
Step 4: Plan an editorial schedule.
Once you’ve gotten used to creating, planning an editorial schedule will help you make the best use of your time. I used to think this wasn’t allowing me to be “creative” enough, but I’ve learned in my years of writing that knowing what I’m going to write before I sit down to write it helps the subconscious roll that topic around in ways we can’t even explain. Planning a schedule reinforces your commitment and lets writing know you’re in it for the long haul.
There are some great inventions out on the market today that have made my life easier. We don’t always have the funds to invest in something new and wonderful, but when we do, watch out. A crockpot? Yep, made life easier AND my kids actually get dinner now (there is a Before Crockpot life and an After Crockpot life, and let me tell you, the After Crockpot life is much better). The Internet? Hey, that’s Husband’s livelihood, so I sure am glad for that. An app for tracking my last period? I don’t know who I’d be without that one.
But there are still some gaping holes in the make-life-easier, especially when it comes to parents. I would like the inventors to get on these asap (and you’re welcome for the ideas).
1. Divider glass between the front seat and the back seats.
I own a minivan. It’s the only vehicle large enough to hold my six kids, but it is not a vehicle large enough to make ignoring them a possibility. Every time we load up to take a trip, even if it’s to the grocery store ten minutes down the road, the first question we hear, before we pull out of the drive, is “Are we almost there?” If we happen to be traveling farther than fifteen minutes up the road, we’re in for a very long trip with billions of opportunities to exercise our patience. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m bored, my back hurts, I dropped my pencil, you made my book fall, he hit me, he’s copying me, he’s laying on me, he’s touching me, he’s looking at me, are we almost there, are we almost there, are we almost there?
I don’t want billions of opportunities to exercise my patience. I would like a glass divider between my seat and theirs so that when things get out of hand, all I have to do is touch a button, wave in the rearview and say, “You’re on your own now, kids.”
2. A cone of silence to put over my face.
Let me just tell you, this would have to be a really strong cone of silence. My kids speak at an average of 3,000 decibels. I am an introvert who, by dinnertime, has had it with the noise six boys can create. I would put on this handy cone when they’re losing their minds about is dinner ready they’re really hungry they’re starving I’m such a mean mom I won’t let them have a snack two minutes before dinner no they haven’t had forty snacks I’m not remembering correctly. I would put it on my face when the 9-year-old starts talking about Pokemon. I would put it on my face when the twins figure out another way to scale the wall and get to their clothes in the closet so they don’t hear what I have to say about the way their closet is now, for the twelfth time this week, all over their floor.
I don’t even care what this looks like. It could look like a giant black spider for all I care (I’ll make that sacrifice). In fact, that might be better. Then I’ll have extra protection, because the kids would be too afraid to come near.
On second thought, maybe I just need a mute button.
3. An invisibility cloak.
This, of course, would be for those moments when the baby is down and ready to go to sleep, even closing his eyes, but the moment he spots you, the whole world is ending and you’re going to have to pick him up, because he’ll cry for 32 hours straight. But an invisibility cloak would also help us smuggle restaurant food into the bedroom when the kids are supposed to be asleep (there would be an extra feature to neutralize the smell of chips and queso and the medium well burger). It would also help a parent successfully sneak out of the house to get a minute to themselves without someone following them, whining at them, asking for something, like another orange or the answer to 147 times 89 or the miracle of turning back time.
4. Toilet paper rolls that have a lock and key.
This would save me considerable money. My 3-year-old twins, you see, are really, really good at experiments like “What happens when you throw a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet I just peed in?” They do it about every other day. They think it’s funny to watch the edges of the paper curl and the way white caves in on itself. It’s not funny. These experiments cost me an average of $15 a month. For the mathematically impaired, that’s $180 a year. That would pay for my electricity bill any month that’s not part of a Texas summer (there aren’t many).
I would like a toilet paper dispenser that’s not afraid to stand up against 3-year-old hands, please.
5. A magic pill that makes a kid feel full.
I am telling you, boys are something else. They can eat a whole pound of strawberries, and they’re still hungry. They can eat twelve bananas and they’re still hungry. They can stuff an entire loaf of bread in their mouth, along with a stick of butter, and they will still be hungry. A pill that could tell them they’re actually just bored would be fantastic.
6. A mobile shoe-tracking app.
I would love to download an app onto my phone that would tell me where every right shoe the 5-year-old owns is hiding, because this is getting a little ridiculous. He wasn’t born with two left feet, but looking at his shoe basket, you would think someone thought it would be funny to put us in an episode of Punk’d: What Happens When All the Right Shoes Disappear. Every morning he’s supposed to be getting ready for school, and it’s the same old story. Only left shoes for every pair of shoes he owns. Can’t find the other one. I spend hours of my life looking for this right shoe and finding it only so it can get lost again.
No, Apple, there’s not an app for everything. This is a giant hole in the app world. Somebody needs to get on this. I would, but I don’t really have what’s called an “inventing mind.” In fact, I don’t really know where my mind is now that I have kids. It’s certainly not where it used to be—or what it used to be.
I guess that’s why all these inventions-that-haven’t-been-invented-yet all seem so brilliant.
Let me know when these inventions are available. I’ll be the first in line to buy…if I’m not already brain-dead from the effort of raising six boys without them.
I’ve mentioned before that when I find an author I like, I will read everything in the world they have to offer. One of those authors is Rainbow Rowell.
I found Rowell through Eleanor & Park, which I read after a friend of mine told me it was one of her favorite young adult reads. I’m not a big young adult reader, but I thought I’d give it a try. It was so exceptionally written, so exceptionally true, so exceptionally part of the high school experience I remember that I had to see what else Rowell had up her sleeve. So I embarked on Fangirl.
Fangirl takes place at a different time and in a different era in a young adult’s life: college. It follows the story of twin sisters, Cath and Wren, who are learning to navigate the choppy waters of college. Wren wants to be on her own, build an identity outside of her identical twin sister, and, for the first time in their lives, Cath does not share a room with her sister. Cath is much more bothered by this than is Wren, who was always better at making friends. So Cath hides herself away in her fan fiction, which she writes for a large following. Wren, meanwhile, hides herself away with partying and alcohol.
During the story, the two sisters struggle with their relationships and their own identities. One of the best aspects of the book was all the issues it explored—alcoholism, the forgiveness of an absent mother, caring for a mentally ill father. It was an important contribution for the world of young adult literature.
One of the strengths of Rowell’s writing is her grasp on characters. In her stories, the characters fly off the page and into the reader’s life. They are real people with real problems and real struggles. They are some of the most believable characters I’ve ever read. Rowell has great insight into the human condition and also the life of a young adult, which is probably why her books are so popular.
Take this scene between Cath and her father:
“He was wearing gray dress pants and a light blue shirt, untucked. His tie, orange with white starbursts, was stuffed into and hanging out of his pocket. Presentation clothes, Cath thought.
“She checked his eyes out of habit. They were tired and shining, but clear.
“Cath felt overwhelmed then, all of a sudden, and even though this wasn’t her show, she leaned forward and hugged him, pressing her face into his stale shirt until she could hear his heart beating. His arm came up, warm, around her. ‘Okay,’ he said roughly. Cath felt Wren take her hand. ‘Okay,’ their dad said again. ‘We’re okay now.’”
It is clear that Cath’s father loves her, but it is also clear that Cath loves her father. Cath and Wren’s mother left when the girls were very young, and it’s only been the three of them for as long as they can remember, and this scene is a perfect mirror into that internal life. One gets the impression that their father has told his daughters those words all their life: “Okay. We’re okay now.” It’s a scene fraught with emotion and unspoken remembrance, one that, somehow, speaks of universal experience.
Rowell also has a practiced hand at dialogue, which is probably the result of her knowing her characters so well.
Here’s another great characterization passage, shown mostly through the description of a character:
“Reagan was looking at Nick like she was already tying him to the railroad tracks.
“Wren was looking at him like she was one of the cool girls in his stories. Oozing contempt.
“Levi was smiling. Like he’d smiled at those drunk guys at Muggsy’s. Before he’d talked Jandro into throwing a punch.”
Each unique description shows so much personality. It’s clear that Rowell knows her characters and exactly how they would react to the same situation.
Rowell also has a way of sneaking truth into her passages. Every writer will understand this passage between Cath and her creative writing professor:
“‘But Cath—most writers don’t. Most of us aren’t Gemma T. Leslie.’ She waved a hand around the office. “We write about the worlds we already know. I’ve written four books, and they all take place within a hundred and twenty miles of my hometown. Most of them are about things that happened in my real life.’
“’But you write historical novels—’
“The professor nodded. ‘I take something that happened to me in 1983, and I make it happen to somebody else in 1943. I pick my life apart that way, try to understand it better by writing straight through it.’
“‘So everything in your books is true?’
“The professor tilted her head and hummed. “Mmmm…yes. And no. Everything starts with a little truth, then I spin my webs around it—sometimes I spin completely away from it. But the point is, I don’t start with nothing.’”
Because Cath was a budding writer, Rowell inserts some passages about writing.
“This wasn’t good, but it was something. Cath could always change it later. That was the beauty in stacking up words—they got cheaper, the more you had of them. It would feel good to come back and cut this when she’d worked her way into something better.”
“Sometimes writing is running downhill, your finger jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.”
Rowell also utilizes great descriptions to write her deep scenes and give her readers a look into the lives of the characters. Here is a description of Cath’s room, when a boy is seeing it for the first time:
“It looked like a kid’s room now that she was imagining it through his eyes. It was big, a half story, with a slanted roof, deep-pink carpet, and two matching, cream-colored canopy beds.”
It’s almost as if Rowell walked into the room and looked around and then described it from memory. She is fantastic at setting scenes like this, pulling a reader in as if they are the ones merely observing.
“Cath put on brown cable-knit leggings and a plaid shirtdress that she’d taken from Wren’s dorm room plus knit wristlet thingies that made her think of gauntlets, like she was some sort of knight in pink, crocheted arms. Levi’s teasing her about her sweater predilection had just made it more extreme.”
I love this passage because of the way it pulls us into the time period when Cath is experiencing her college days. Rowell uses the fashion of the day to pulls us into the scene.
Rowell is also a master at providing filler information.
“Wren lifted her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her thumbs.”
One could imagine Wren doing exactly that.
And, of course, there’s enough romance in the book to make your knees all weak and your stomach fluttery. You care about the characters so much you’re just glad that they’ve found something as elusive as love.
“He called to tell her he was back. Knowing they were in the same city again made the missing him flare up inside her. In her stomach. Why were people always going on and on about the heart? Almost everything Levi happened in Cath’s stomach.”
If one has ever felt the stirrings of desire, one knows it doesn’t happen in the heart at all. It happens much deeper, and so we can empathize with Wren and her developing love.
Other passages deftly communicated the tone of the romance between Cath and Levi, the way new love is all senses, all poetry, all exciting and beautiful and scary and, mostly, wonderful.
“His heart beat in the palm of Cath’s hand, right there, like her fingers could close around it…”
“Love was all soft motion and breath, curves and warm hollows. Levi’s chest was a living thing.”
Cath thinks in metaphor and poetry:
“Cath was pretty sure that Levi actually was the brightest thing in the room, in any room. Bright and warm and crackling—he was a human campfire.”
“She didn’t have words for what Levi was. He was a cave painting. He was The Red Balloon.”
Rowell’s stories are not just good stories—they are instructional texts, showing writers how to create believable characters, how to write deep scenes, how to talk about romance and new love in a way that will inspire love in the hearts of readers.
Much like Eleanor & Park, Fangirl is a fantastic contribution to the young adult world, examining not only tough issues but also, subtly, showing what it means to really love.
All my life I have set for myself unreachable standards of perfection. I have eyed my fall-shorts and felt the disappointment needling me, and I have heard that voice of condemn whispering it: Do better.
And I walked it right into my parenting.
Just last night I listened to a talk about how parents should shoot for Bs in our parenting, not As, work toward becoming a good parent, not a great one, how the high standards of parenting can affect us and our children and knock us right out of alignment, and I felt the truth freeze my bones.
Because I know how we can expect too much, always-perfect behavior from these little ones trying to find their way in a so-confusing world, and I know how their mistakes can become our failures if we’re not careful, and I know how suddenly we can have a dog in the fight, a mean one that demands and punishes to break and loses sight of the gift hiding in those mistakes-turned-learning-experiences.
We can grip knuckle-white-tight those unreachable standards for our children because everything they do in their lives reflects on our perfection. And perfectionism, the pursuit of it, can start eating away at us, bit by little bit, when he throws that pencil in frustration because it’s cleanup time and he wasn’t finished with his picture yet, and we’ve told him and told him and told him about these laws of anger, how he shouldn’t throw anything or hurt anyone or destroy anything; when he sneaks downstairs to steal an apple, even though it’s bedtime and we’ve told him and told him and told him this is not allowed; when he brings those cars into his bed from the bathtub, hiding them under pillows, even though we’ve told him and told him and told him it’s not time to play, it’s only time to sleep.
It eats away at us until we explode, because all those mistakes are our parenting failures, because we haven’t done enough to train them or we haven’t tried hard enough to change them or we haven’t been enough to show them.
We can put that pressure on ourselves, on our children, until it bends us all clean in two, and who is the winner in this too-high-standards place?
Our children, walking away from every encounter feeling as if there’s something deep-down wrong with them because we are there, standing over them, shaking fingers at them, always needing more and demanding more and taking more than they can give, even though we know, deep down, it’s more than anyone can give.
Who in this world is perfect every hour of every day? And why do we expect it, knowing the answer?
“It’s not wrong to long for perfection,” says Kay Warren. “It’s just wrong to expect it on earth.”
Perfectionism is like a great black smoke-cloud, choking our joy, hiding play, stealing the adventure that is parenthood, because it covers the beauty of those mistakes that become learning opportunities not just for the children, but for us, too, the parents. When I accept my children for who they are and not who I wish they would be, my joy takes wing in a heart that sees it true: how every mistake is but a chance to teach and connect and love more deeply and surely than before.
How do we learn if we never fail?
So maybe we read that note from a teacher, about a little boy who had to sit out a portion of his recess because he didn’t want to give a lunch-duty teacher his book when she told him he needed to eat his lunch before he read, and, while our face flames, we remember how this experience, this mistake, this talk-back and the later talking through will shape who he becomes, and we don’t hold it over his head as a don’t-ever-cross-again bar of perfection. And maybe he spills that second glass of milk this morning, even though we told him not to play at the table while he’s eating, and we hand him that towel to clean it up for the second time, and we ask “What could you have done differently?” instead of pointing anger-words toward a child-heart, because we remember that here is an opportunity to learn from a happened-again whoops. And maybe we see him hit his little brothers because he’s asked them to leave him alone and they don’t understand, just want to play, and we remember this, too, is a step along the road to becoming if we only choose to correct and teach in love.
We find joy in the imperfection, in the mistakes, in the failures, because we know what they hold within them: the potential for who we become.
This essay is an excerpt from March: We Choose Joy. Adventure. Play, Episode 3 of Family on Purpose. For more information about the Family on Purpose project, visit the project landing page.
This week kicks off Library Lovers’ Month, and if you know me and my family at all, you know that one thing we love to do is read together. We read before nap time, when one of the 3-year-old twins will pick out two picture books and I’ll read a few chapters from the middle grade novel we’re wading through (current pick is Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan). We read audio books while doing chores, when we don’t feel like listening to the kids complain about our ‘90s Pandora station and how it is “really hurting our ears because this is the worst music ever. Seriously. Minecraft music is much better.”
We read during bath time and laugh about Shel Silverstein’s bizarre poetry. We read before bed.
This kids and I head out to the library at least once a week, because libraries are magical places for children. Some of my fondest memories as a kid were the ones where my mother set us loose in the local library and told us to pick out enough books to last us a week, and, of course, I’d pick more. I love libraries so much that, early on, I set one up in my own house. Boys share three to a bedroom, but we have a library, because we have our priorities straight.
With all those trips to the library come, inevitably, lost books.
There are so many things that never happened before I had kids. Overdrawing my account (I can’t even add correctly anymore). Leaving something important at a store (I’ll leave the box of diapers, but at least I have all my kids). Accruing a regular library fine.
I’m convinced we’re some of the biggest supporters of our local library, which is all well and good, except that when I pay for a book, I like to keep it. Instead, library books that are fortunate enough to come home with my kids fall into a giant black hole that is my boys’ bedroom.
Ha. Who am I kidding? The whole house is a black hole.
I’ve found library books in some pretty weird (or maybe just annoying) places. Like
In the car.
I know. That’s not so very hard to believe. We do, after all, drive to the library, and boy are always reading on the way back home, because once they get home they’ll find better things to do, like dump out all the LEGOs and come in and out the front door ten thousand times and decide they want wear the Spider-Man costume, no they want to wear Iron man, no they think they’d rather go as a SWAT team member with red silk gloves and a Robin Hood hat, and they forget all about reading the books or, more importantly, where they last saw them. My boys are the worst at leaving books in the car, which are sure to get trampled by a billion feet next time we load up, but, hey, at least they’ll have a book for the five-minute trip to the store. Win.
In the laundry hamper.
Maybe they were reading the book in the bathroom when they took their clothes off, and, because they were finished with it, they weren’t all that bothered when the book got caught in their sleeves, and then they didn’t notice the hard corners sticking out when they actually put their clothes in the hamper. It’s not all that far-fetched. I mean, the only thing they really pay attention to is the answer to “What time is dinner” or its twin, “What are we having for dinner?” But, hey, boys? A laundry hamper is most definitely not the place for books. I feel compelled to replace these Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire books for the simple fact that they smell like wet dog and rotten Fritos.
In the trash can.
This is most likely the work of the 3-year-old twins. They are, you see, some of the biggest instigators in my house. If a brother says he really likes the song playing through the speakers, the 3-year-old will sneak up to the iPhone and “accidentally” turn it off. If a brother says “Please stop copying me” a 3-year-old will do exactly the opposite for hours on end. If a brother says he really likes this book he’s reading and then he happens to leave that very book unattended for half a second, well, there it goes in a stainless steel container with last night’s chicken bones, somebody’s old toast covered in jam and their baby brother’s most recent fully loaded diaper.
In the refrigerator.
Book preservation? A book and a snack? Someone mistook bookshelf for fridge shelf? It’s anyone’s guess.
I know what you’re thinking. Hey, at least your kids love reading. (Or maybe you’re thinking, hey, you need to get a handle on your kids, in which case I’m not really interested in anything you have to say.) Exactly. At least they love reading.
I suppose if library fines are the price I have to pay for kids who will read to stave off boredom, then I’ll take it.
But if you can’t get your book back on the designated library shelf, I swear…
In this episode, Rachel shares about a favorite memoir, a middle grade graphic novel that celebrates differences as superpowers, why it’s good to read books critically, writing in a notebook versus writing on a computer, and the intensive writing demanded by her fantasy series, Fairendale.
