Mommy blogs and memoirs: Where do we draw the line when writing about our kids?

Just saw this excellent piece that appeared in the Atlantic two years ago: The Ethical Implications of Parents Writing About their Kids (Tips for spotting a problematic new genre: parental overshare) by Phoebe Maltz Bovy, who makes many valid points and has a name I would like to steal for a character in a novel.

With the ease of publishing a blog post or even a book these days, there's been a glut of confessional writing, and there's been some internet sturm und drang over this issue. (Do not say "mommmy wars." I will punch the next person who uses the term "mommy wars" or "women's fiction." Do not test me. I will punch you on the arm.)

The way the two sides have been presented reminds me of this amusing anecdote, which really is not about my kids, though they are in it, and they are naked:

When my son and daughter were toddler and infant, I gave my mother-in-law an adorable photo of them in the bathtub. In the photo, my mom is sitting on the closed toilet playing guitar, and the kids are in full song, suds flying everywhere. My mother-in-law pursed her lips, folded the photo in half and said, "I never took naked pictures of my kids. There's enough smut in the world."

Moral of the story: On the one hand, the concept of "overshare" partially depends on the audience; on the other, as the article says, parents are the first line of defense for a child's privacy.

When I wrote a memoir about being a young mommy with cancer (Bald in the Land of Big Hair, HarperCollins 2001), I agonized over what to say and not say about my kids. I had written the book I wished was available to me when I was sick. I hoped it would be a gift to the next young mom in the chemo lounger. But my kids had been through a rotten, rotten couple of years, and I didn't want to traumatize them any further. My husband and I made the difficult decision to hold back the movie rights when interest was expressed by Lifetime. I was in remission, but we were told not to hope for more than five years. We'd been bankrupted by my cancer treatment and needed the money desperately, but we didn't want to force our kids to live with a Hollywood version of our family after my death.

As it played out, I lived (GOFIGHTWIN CHEMO!), and my kids survived being characters in a bestselling memoir. They turned out great and regard me today with all the eye-rolling, long-suffering love most 20-somethings have for their mom. Over the years, I've published maybe 10% of the words I've written about my children. The other 90%, including a full-length memoir called Offspring, I've either destroyed or set aside for them to read after my death, when the decision to publish or not will be theirs. They are entitled to tell their own stories or to keep their experiences private, including the story about growing up with a writer mommy.

Here's the advice I give my ghostwriting clients on memoirs in general:

1) I have the right to tell my own story, but it's not right or reasonable for me to project subtext, motivation or intention on other people who figure in my story, and I can't control the filters readers bring to my work, so I have to consider how the story might land on the adorable-smut-in-the-world spectrum.

2) There's no such thing as a tell-all memoir, nor should there be. When making decisions about what to share and what to keep to yourself, do a cost/benefit analysis: Is telling this story going to cost you or someone you love more than it benefits the reader? It's not fair to tweak the truth in a memoir; if you open that door, you should be prepared to let the reader in, but you're not obligated to share everything. I believe strongly in the art of memoir as cosmic cartography: we each have a tiny piece of the map of human experience, and sharing those disparate fragments, we help others find their way through the same perilous territory. However...

3) Published memoirs should earn their footprint in the world. Why are you telling this story? Are you sharing something new, shining a light on something unexplored, potentially offering a great gift to someone who is lost and afraid or is writing a way for you to process the experience for yourself? Memoir writing is a powerful way to work through a traumatic experience or to find meaning in the grind of everyday life. But not everything that's written -- even if it's beautifully written and took hundreds of hours -- needs to be published. Maybe the gift of this memoir was in the writing.

Not trying to kick a hornets nest. Just my two cents on the topic. Apparently, writer/photographer Penny Guisinger will be doing a panel on this topic at AWP 2016. I suspect it will be well attended.

Bloom where you're planted (Fresh ink and yahrtzeit for my mother)

"I don't understand tattoos," Gary said yesterday. "I don't get what it is or why people feel the need to do it." Anyone who contemplates getting a tattoo should probably think that question through, in addition to contemplating the pain and money and huge risk that it could go awry.

The best explanation I could come up with: A tattoo is the karmic counterpart of a scar. A scar is (usually) an involuntary statement of the skin: "I was in this place and this thing happened, and I healed, but I am changed." A tattoo is elective, but it makes a similar statement. For whatever reason, the person feels the need to express: "I went to this place in life, and I am changed."

Even a stupid little Tweety Bird or ill-chosen tramp stamp is the branding of a moment, a scar left by rebellion. Not all scars are beautiful or worth the misadventure, but every one of them marks a lesson learned. Same is true for tattoos.

The topic came up because Jerusha and I had an appointment with artist Christina Sparrow (who also did my Shakespeare tattoo) to get inked in memory of my mom, author/historian Lois Lonnquist, who died March 27, 2014 of Alzheimer's.

In my quest to invent a religion that works for me (I call it Jewbuddhistianity), I've observed that Jews really do death right. You sit shiva to calm the chaotic moment and acknowledge how we're humbled by loss, and then you observe yahrtzeit one year later to honor the power of love that far surpasses the power of loss.

Yesterday was yahrtzeit for my mom. Her downward spiral was an exhausting trek, but for 75 years before that, she lived a vibrantly creative life of the mind. "Bloom where you're planted" was a keystone Momism she repeated many times while I was growing up. Even as a kid I knew it meant more than "pack your stuff, we're moving again," though that was frequently the context.

My mom embodied the greater meaning of that folksy little saw. She was a resilient survivor of a hardscrabble childhood, and time after time, throughout my life, I watched her make something extraordinary out of circumstances and opportunities that ranged from vaguely disappointing to downright punishing. She had the fortitude to till whatever earth she was given. She had the patience and wisdom to cultivate something better. She taught her six children the importance of being grounded and productive, not just in where you are, but in who you are. My tiger lily is a perfect avatar for Mom: graceful and determined with a just hint of volatile.

Jerusha opted for wild flowers. When I checked in with her this morning to see how her fresh ink was settling in, she texted back:

"I'm really happy. And I see Montana when I look at it. It's grandma's flowers and the coyote pillow and the couch/chair and saying goodnight to the Sleeping Giant. It's the spirit of all the time I spent with grandma and all the stories she told me about her life. I think that's why I like that it's a tattoo as well. It's so delicate and pretty and feminine, but to get that, I had to go through something painful that takes strength and endurance. It's a microcosm for the things I learned about grandma's life as I got older and could understand more about how she went from Fort Peck Dam to Humbolt Loop."

Update March 28, 2017: Three months ago, my tiger lily tribute to Mom took on a whole new meaning. Meet my lovely granddaughter, Lily. "Though she be but little, she is fierce."

End of an Era

Today, my only kiddo is graduating high school, an event guaranteed to launch a fleet of memories, including those related to motherhood and the career.

Early on, when I was just beginning and struggling to balance a more-than-full-time job and a new baby (grad school, too, while I was at it), I squeezed as much writing time as I could manage into naptimes. All too quickly, that was over.

Later, I wrote around those moments when he was happily occupied with his Little People or his Lincoln Logs or -- heaven forgive me -- those sing-along or movie videos I used to steal a little time. All too quickly, that was over, too, and he started off to school.

Since I was still teaching, I'd come home and spend time with the boy and the man, make their dinner and tuck the little one into his bed, then write between the hours of eight and ten-thirty every evening. On weekends and during the summer, I'd steal even more time as I was able. About this period, I began slipping away for occasional weekend writers' conferences, but as long as I came back with a Beanie Baby, he was all smiles.

All too quickly, that season ended, too.

When he was in the second grade, I made my first sale. As he wondered how this might affect his own life, I remember making the suggestion that he could help me at booksignings. With big tears in his eyes, he burst out, "But I don't even know how to write cursive!" As it turned out, having an author-mom quickly became yesterday's news, something he takes for granted just as he would if I were still working as a teacher. He did occasionally exhibit staccato bursts of pride, as in the time he boasted to his soccer coach this his mom was "semi-famous." And then, that time passed us by as well.

Enter the mean season, the teen season. You remember, the one where everything your parents do (breathing included) is mortifying? Somewhere in all this, he heard romance equated to trash and took it to heart, even though the teen movies he enjoyed had considerably more "adult" (though not in the emotional sense) content. At that point, he avoided telling people what I do, though after while, he got over it and worked out a "you do your thing, I'll do mine" peace.

About a week-and-a-half ago, I sold what will be my fifteenth and sixteenth novels and lamented that when I first started, I used to score roses and a nice dinner out. This time, I stopped by the Mc-Drive-thru to pick up a couple of sundaes. He told me I should take it as a compliment that my successes have become routine, something expected of me by the family. Publishing has become a regular gig and not a miracle. We had one of those cool, adult-like conversations where it dawns on you that your child is becoming not exactly the person you set out to raise, but this mysterious being you've been privileged to watch unfold.

And because he's going off to college in a couple of months, I know that this time, too, will pass too quickly, that I'll soon have all the time I wish to write... and it will leave me longing for a bit less.