No Drama in My Life

A wise daughter appreciates the happiness of her parents.

Great memoirs are often the result of tumultuous, even tragic childhoods. The ones where money is scarce, abuse is commonplace, and full-blown psychosis is just a drink away. The single mother or perma-dysfunctional parents drag their brood from place to squalid place, sometimes abandoning them to a wretched relative while they pursue a drug-fueled artistic journey in a desert commune.

I can see why these childhoods lead to intensely readable literature (Angela's Ashes, The Glass Castle). The child at the center manages to rise above their broken family universe and turn their lives into something laudable when the most anyone could expect is welfare living at best and violent crime at worst. Who doesn't love a story of rags to riches, destitution to destiny, chaos to creative genius?

I guess this is the long way of saying that I'll never write a great memoir. My childhood was as idyllic as Monet's Giverny. When I think back on the years I spent in my parents' home, I can't say I have any memories of nastiness or meanness. I know there must have been the occasional bad mood or minor disagreement, but overall we were at peace. We were happy. My parents loved each other and they loved their children. My dad provided during the day and played with us at night. My mom dedicated her life to being an extraordinary nurturer, without any of the bitterness over lost dreams and self-sacrifice that writers love to dredge up when describing mothers who stay at home. We really were a family that was as happy as it looked.

My parents did not tolerate any meanness between the children. I'm still not sure how they communicated this message so clearly; I don't remember any conversations about household rules.Somehow my brother, sister, and I just knew that bullying, teasing, and fighting had no place in our home. My parents rarely had to discipline us because we rarely had any reason to want to disobey them. I think the reason we didn't talk back or yell at our parents was that our parents spoke to us with patience and respect from our earliest days.

I spend a lot of time pondering parenting and its associated challenges, from the daily (a diet consisting soley of graham crackers) to the big picture (raising a moral, well-adjusted child) to the just plain scary (drugs, child traffickers, trashy girlfriends). I don't have enough mommy time under my belt to claim to have all, or even any, answers. But when I look to parents and how they did it, it seems like the answers are the simple, time-tested principles that we too often turn away from because they aren't interesting, new, or exciting. We've heard them so many times that they almost lose their power unless we really think about what they mean. Love. Respect. Kindness. Obedience. Faith. These are the things that I was raised on and no matter what anyone says about these old school ideals, no one can argue that I did not have a pretty fantastic childhood.

While loving parents aren't nearly as conducive to nonfiction pageturners as delusional self-aggrandizing parents, I'll trade happy memories for a best-selling memoir any day.

How to Deal with Modern Life

Our priorities define our lives.

Driving is my sanctuary, which is ironic because I hate driving. I've never had much confidence behind the wheel, which I attribute to my pathetic sense of direction (getting lost in the town you grew up in your entire life is, yes, pathetic), my strange inability to tell which lane other cars are driving in when merging onto freeways (also problematic), and the fact that I got in an accident the first time I drove my first car (hitting an attorney in a Red Robin parking lot...not recommended). But at the present moment in my life with an almost-one-year-old, that fifteen minute drive between Grandma's and home is fifteen minutes of stillness. Max is locked in his seat and there's nothing I can do except keep my eyes on the road and let the soothing, ever-so-slightly-intellectually-arrogant voices of NPR reporters wash over me. It doesn't matter if they're talking about the newest salmon restoration project on the Skagit River or the latest meeting of the EU, if I'm driving, I'm listening to National Public Radio.

One night I heard a promo for an upcoming interview with an author that promised new, proven ways for dealing with the stresses and frenetic insanity of modern life: how to digitally disconnect, how to get more sleep, how to find time for yourself.

It struck me as a bunch of BS.

Yes, life has changed in unimaginable ways in the past 25, 50, 100, 1,000 years. Technology makes our lives easier and more complicated all the at the same time. But has human nature really changed? Has what we truly, deeply, really want changed (love, peace, security)? I don't think so. The answer to dealing with modern life is the same as the answer to dealing with ancient life: know your priorities and live by them.

Whether you live in 1013, 2013, or 3013, knowing what you want and what you value is at the core of dealing with life. After the past year of my life, I'm convinced that happiness is found when you live your life in line with what matters most to you. It may not be the most fun, most exciting, or most wealthy life, but it will ultimately be the most peaceful and most rewarding.

Oh, and my advice for dealing with today's problems? Here it is:

Want to digitally disconnect? Then turn off your phone at 7 pm.
Want to get more sleep? Turn off Facebook and go to bed.
Want to find time for yourself? Find it in the mundane moments technology hasn't taken away yet. Like driving in the car.

Foundations

A decent life is the beginning of greatness.

As a kid, I used to be jealous of my friend, whose grandparents gave beautiful presents at every holiday and occasion. Good grades? New toy horse stable. Summer visit? New American Girl Doll (along with extra clothes and accessories). When I mentioned to my mom how lucky my friend was (did I mention I'd like a few more presents, please?), she told me that we don't show love in our family that way (which of course made me wish that we did show love that way).

My grandparents are good people. They were and are good parents: steady, consistent, loving. They taught their children the values that strong families have held onto for generations: faith, work, loyalty. They've been true to each other, true to their families, true to their God. And before them, their parents lived the same way. And their parents before them.

My grandparents' posterity may not remember any single act of bravery or accomplishment of note. In fact, they probably won't because my grandparents have lived an ordinary life, marrying young, working hard, living frugally, raising kids. But although they won't remember, although they might never even know it, their posterity will owe them. By living a decent life, my grandparents built a foundation for the families that would come from them. They showed that right choices and good living are the way to happiness and the types of success that matter in this life and beyond. Just as dysfunction tends to bred dysfunction, decency leads to more decency, goodness to more goodness, strong families to more strong families.

As new parent in the throes of trying to build the foundation of my son's life, how grateful I am that this is the gift my grandparents chose to give.