The day they left West Virginia, Kenneth’s friend Sonny gave him
his precious pogo stick as a farewell present. Kenneth pogoed
across America. He couldn’t pogo in the car, so he grabbed every
other opportunity to pogo. I envision my grandmother, at the end of
a long, hot, horrible day, entering a motel, prepared to plead or
battle with the manager for a chance to stay the night despite
their civilian status. Behind her trail Martha, whining, and
Kenneth: Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud!

Somewhere in the Great Plains, the kids caught what
has been described to the next generation as a kangaroo rat. They
imprisoned it in a box and brought it along for much-needed
entertainment. Inexplicably, it wasn’t very playful, electing to
jam itself into a corner of its confinement and sulk.

When the novelty of the rodent wore off, Martha and Kenneth
began to bicker again. Uncle Harry distracted them with a generous
offer to pay a penny for every two gray hairs they could find and
pull out of his head. They greedily inspected every lock of Harry’s
black hair, enthusiastically jerking out the gray hairs. Harry was
a young man, and soon he was surprised at how many gray hairs the
kids found. But when they ran low on gray hairs, the zealous little
wage-earners simply began pulling black hair. Soon, Harry got
wise and began demanding to view the gray hairs before he would
pay. Kenneth was baffled at first, but Martha quickly evolved a new strategy: She’d pull two black hairs, so
Harry felt the tweaks, then show him two gray hairs she’d pulled
before. When Harry finally realized that he was seeing the same two
gray hairs again and again, he politely insisted that she stop.
There may have been some words spoken about honesty being the best
policy. Humiliated and disgraced, Martha huddled in a corner of the
back seat.

But now, while Martha sulked, Kenneth was somehow finding gray
hairs again, and turning them over and getting paid. Martha, sullen
and suspicious, tried to puzzle out what he was doing, and soon
spotted Kenneth’s trick. He’d pull two black hairs from Harry’s
head, reach into the box, pull two pale hairs out of the kangaroo
rat’s tail and give them to Harry. The kangaroo rat, already
despondent about being captured, boxed and taken for a ride,
simply crouched and endured.

When Martha figured out what Kenneth was doing, she indignantly
grabbed for the rat. That was it for the rat, who finally
decided it was time to bite somebody. Martha shrieked and yanked
her hand — with kangaroo rat attached — out of the box, sending
it flying across the car. “Help, help!” she screamed. “My Land!”
screamed my grandfather, swerving. “Jack, Jack, watch the road!”
screamed my grandmother. “No fair!” screamed Kenneth.

They pulled over. By this time the kangaroo rat was under the
seat in hysterics, so they got out, opened the doors and waited
for it to emerge. This didn’t happen for a long time, perhaps
because Kenneth took this rare chance to pogo — along the shoulder
of the road. Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud! Boing! Thud! After
about half an hour the kangaroo rat shot out and disappeared into
the desert, where, presumably, all its hair grew back snow-white.

This incident made my grandmother realize that distracting the
kids was a matter of life and death. She got them started on word
games. But they were soon bored with spotting license plates and
playing “I love my love with an A because she is Adorable, I hate
my love with an A because she is Awful …” They began playing a
game based on the following ancient folk tune:

If I had a million dollars

I know what I would do

I’d buy a million packets of pins

And stick them all in you

Ha ha

The game was to construct variations:

If I had a million dollars

I know what I would do

I’d buy 10,000 pogo sticks

And bounce them over you

Ha ha

This provided such a good outlet for savagery that the family
arrived in California intact. Today, Martha (my mother) and Kenneth
(my uncle) are on excellent terms, if you discount the occasional
ice cube dropped down the collar. In collective memory, the 11-day
car trip to California is a golden time — the worst of road trips,
the best of road trips. Although my mother would never let me get
a pogo stick.

There’s worse. I like to feel that my life has not been wholly
routine, that I have a few unusual experiences and original
thoughts to recount. But it turns out that I could have paraglided
from the top of Everest clutching an anthrax bomb to my bosom to
save the world from an Eskimo conspiracy to trigger a new Ice Age
and that would not strike most people as being anywhere near as
riveting as my habit of not calling my parents Mom and Dad.

Yes, it’s true. I call my parents by their names and I always have and I have no idea why. They claim not to be able to remember why they decided to raise us that way. Maybe it was an academic-circles left-wing Beat-era thing, how would I know? It seemed
perfectly natural to me.

But no matter how brilliant one’s child-rearing ideas are, the fly in the ointment is always the children’s Ghastly Little Peers.
Kids, with their shining-eyed honesty, are always the first to ask,
“What kind of name is that?” “What’s wrong with your skin?” “Is
it true you’re different and should be ostracized, hunted down and
stoned?” and in my case, “How come you don’t call your mom and dad
Mom and Dad?”

My own Ghastly Little Peers also had searching philosophical
questions like, “How come you don’t go to church?” “How come your
father has a beard?” and “How can she be your mother and your
sister?” (OK, I made that one up.) But nothing shocked people like my
calling my parents by their names. Apparently it seemed wrong,
icky, disrespectful, show-offy, sick.

After a few years I started replying, “I just do. How come you call your parents by their titles? They don’t call you ‘child,’ do they?” This attempt at frank and open discussion was generally met with hostile silence.

There were years of this. Once out of high school, it became less of an issue. It didn’t seem so shocking to my Peers to hear an
older person addressed by name, or maybe people had learned to keep more of the searching philosophical questions to themselves. Or else they were hoping to stop calling their own parents Mom and Dad.

When I got pregnant, the Mom issue came rushing back in an all-new form. Almost every maternity nurse I’ve met and almost every ob-gyn tries to put expectant parents at ease by referring to them as moms and dads, often addressing them directly: “Mom, put your feet in these stirrups.” “Dad, you wait here with these back issues of TV Guide.”

The more ghastly the thing they want you to do, the more babyish
their mode of address. “Now, Mommy, we want you to take off all
your clothes, get on this treadmill and drink ipecac while these
medical students take notes, OK, Mommykins?” The comeback, I suppose, is, “Drink it yourself, Sonny,” or “Think
again, little Missy.” But it always takes me a few years to
compose my comebacks.

- – - – - – - – - -

Far from being a rebel against tradition, I am tradition’s little
wannabe and that is why my own children call me by my name. It is
still what seems natural to me. It causes some people to guess
that I am a stepmother rather than a mother — why else would they
not call me Mom? — but that’s easy enough to clear up. My kids say they find the queries of their peers annoying but not traumatic. Perhaps they are simply shielding me, since I am so sensitive.

Yet strangers persist in referring to me as a mom, or even — at
the pediatrician’s office, for example — addressing me as Mom.
Being called Mom by someone who is not my child is an unwarranted
familiarity. And in my case, since even my children don’t call me
Mom, it’s like someone who calls you by the wrong nickname –
Willy, when your friends call you Bill; Brucie-Boy, when your
friends call you the Boss; Bimbo, when your friends call you Posh
Spice: It is an erroneous familiarity.*

But even more than the phony familiarity, I object to the assumption of uniformity, the assumption that there’s only one way to be, only one thing a child could call its mother. I suspect that the step after that is the assumption that uniformity is natural and good: We’re all alike in this — and we should be all alike — what kind of cold, unloving monster doesn’t let her children call her Mom?

Moms are easily stereotyped, something that’s no more welcome to
people whose children call them Mom than it is to me. I’ve met
some who accept the stereotyping in the hopes of fighting it, or
even of gaining the clout of numbers. Women who proclaim, “I’m a
soccer mom and I’m not ashamed of it” are trying to reclaim an
epithet that has been used with an insulting tone. Yeah, I’m
black, is there a problem with that? Grrrl Power! Dead white
males, unite! We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it! Soccer
moms are people too!

I resent the stereotype. I resent enforced Momdom the way I
resent those ghastly mass-produced flags for the home that have
swept the country in recent years, with their colorful bunnies and
autumn leaves and pineapples (ancient symbol of hospitality).

I hate those flags because they are insipid, because they look like mall decorations, but mostly because they are so riddled with
cheesy assumptions about how we all think alike at any given time.
It’s December! Our thoughts turn to snowmen! Even if it doesn’t
snow here and we’ve never made a snowman in our lives! It’s
spring! Our thoughts turn to tulips! Even if we dislike tulips!
It’s mid-March! Our thoughts turn to leprechauns! Even if we’re
not Irish! Or even if we’re Irish and despise leprechauns! Even
if our religion teaches that leprechauns are satanic! It’s no
particular time of year! Our thoughts turn to pineapples! Even if
pineapples cause our loved ones to turn red, swell up and grope
their way to the phone to dial 911! Smile!

No doubt there are flags for Mother’s Day, and no doubt they say
“Mom.”

Abruptly, young Fuchsia comes into the room. “Is ‘shut up’ a bad word?” she asks. You motion her away and clutch the telephone closer. Just a little longer and the party at the other end of the line will be won over, will offer you a job, will buy your idea, will convert to your religion, will sponsor your legislation.

“Boomer told me to shut up!” Fuchsia says, louder. “That’s a bad word, isn’t it? He called me a tattle-tale.”

“You have a lot of experience in this area?” the person on the phone asks. With growing alarm, you hear Boomer approaching. “Can I play with the blender?” he is asking. “Do you want me to sing a song?”

Now, having children is no disgrace. Living in the same house with your children is no disgrace. Calling from home should be no disgrace. And yet. Somehow. It interferes with the impression you want to convey at this exact moment.

Stay very cool. Rather than allow the glorious picture of yourself to crumble, now is the time to add a new dimension to the sprawling office suite — flunkies, lackeys and underlings, even a squad of eager, incredibly well-connected interns, dashing in and out on errands you have assigned them.

As Boomer opens his mouth to sing, as Fuchsia begins to turn savagely upon him (“You big sucky poophead!”), you must act. In a calm voice, say, “Pardon me a moment.” Turn to the children, and say loudly and firmly, “Trump, I don’t want to see those documents until you clear it with Mitsubishi.” Glare. Say, “Excellent, DuPont, have it embossed.” Shake your fist.

Get back on the phone. Gracefully acknowledge the interruption. Say, “Utter chaos around here.” Say, “Deadline.” Say, “Things are a little hectic. Quarterly report.”

“Screening tonight.”

“Grant renewals.”

“Launch at 0800.”

“Venezuela’s more work than all the rest put together.”

For sometimes in this imperfect world, it’s necessary to put on a front. Not to disclose your inmost being. To seem like someone calling from the executive suite at the Tri-State Headquarters of a monolith rather than from a warm, intellectually rich family home inhabited by extremely spirited children. This is why it’s particularly useful to name your children things like DuPont, Rockefeller or Mitsubishi instead of Fuchsia and Boomer. You may have neglected to take this precaution, but it’s not too late. Children often enjoy changing their names. Convince them that Trump is an unusual and prestigious nickname for Fuchsia, that even on the playground Rothschild cuts a bigger swath than Boomer.

Remember, your children are on your side. Success for you means more circus tickets for them. Explain it to them. “The evil, outdated system tries to make workers and innovators like Mommy and Daddy act as if they don’t even have families, but we’ll show them, right? We’ll twist their distorted assumptions against them, won’t we? OK — you’re DuPont, she’s Trump.”

“And you’re doing so well!” they’d say.

“Well …” Before I could continue, they’d shout, “That’s so great!” and change the subject. I gradually understood that no one wanted to pity me. They wanted to admire me. Specifically, they wanted to admire the tremendous ease with which I combined grad school and children.

What tremendous ease? I was at my wit’s end. But that no one wanted to hear. Easy, they wanted to hear. “It’s easy! You can do it all, and it’s easy, watch me.” That’s what I was supposed to say. Possible, I might have said, it’s possible. Rough, though. But no one would listen to that.

“She has two kids!” they’d cry, pointing me out as an inspirational text. “Two!” You could see the highly colored thoughts whirling in their heads: Jackpot! If she can do it, I can do it. If she can combine grad school and kids, I’ll be able to combine work and kids. It’ll be OK. (Here I have to issue a qualification. Only my female classmates reacted this way. Male classmates generally contented themselves with asking the kids’ ages, perhaps going so far as to comment, “That’s cool.”) Female classmates occasionally risked a question. My husband and I shared housework, right? Right. Sometimes I’d point out that because we were both irrationally busy, the shared housework we actually performed was minimal.

Compared to my classmates, we dwelt in squalor. They lived in studios or shared apartments, with their sparse possessions elegantly arranged on improvised shelves or artistically stored in baskets. The centerpieces of their living spaces tended to be desks, idiosyncratically and reverently arranged to suit their work habits.

We lived in (rented) houses or flats. Our abundant but worthless possessions were everywhere, often strewn on the floor or jammed into closets. The centerpiece of our home was generally a series of quivering junk piles the children swore were art projects. My desk was heaped with things my husband had dumped when he despaired of finding another place for them. Key tools of my trade — pens, paper, insulting notes from editors — were missing, probably imbedded in an art project somewhere. When I’d mention this, my classmates would dismiss it out of hand. Sure, they’d agree, sometimes you gotta let housework slide a little. Skip polishing the brass. Let the brilliants on the chandelier get dusty. Put the napkins away without ironing. Only if they chanced to visit my house could they grasp the true dimensions of the chaos. Busy as we were, I seldom entertained, and so they rarely came over to behold the grimy, pockmarked underbelly of having it all.

Their blithe reassurances made me think of a book on pregnancy and childbirth I was given before my daughter was born. A chapter for husbands advised them to be tolerant and overlook the dust bunnies under the coffee table. Ha! Our house had dust bunnies without number, dust armadillos, dust bison. Grease bunnies. Mildew bunnies. It was hard to locate the coffee table, let alone get at the dust hyenas cackling underneath. (This is a thing of the past. Today our dwelling is a space that might be featured in Sunset or HG — a showplace of wry elegance and simplicity. We keep it immaculate, accenting the decor with rotating selections from our art collection. But let’s have dinner at your place.)

If my classmates didn’t want to believe that housework was a problem, there was no way I could convince them that things like spending time alone with one’s spouse, reading books or seeing friends could be problems. Willing or not, I was forced to be an inspiration.

Now that I’ve graduated, I spend more time among people who also have children, people who arrive at work panting, people who rush out of meetings to take calls from day-care providers, people who keep wondering if they have mono — there must be some reason why they’re so tired all the time. They want different role models. “It’s easy!” is the last thing they want to hear.

They like to hear about the charge of the dust bison, because they have dust fauna too. They want to know they’re not the only ones. In fact, they’d like to hear that my husband and I are worse slobs than they are. If I’m at my wit’s end, they want to know. Gory details are appreciated. The more I can’t cope, the more competent they feel. I am an inspiration once again.