Motherhood Moments: Passing On a Love of Words

Zoe FitzGerald Carter — Sun, 08 May 2011 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Holidays, Opinions, Books for Parents

Zoe FitzGerald Carter with her mother and daughter. Credit: Zoe FitzGerald Carter

If childhood had a soundtrack, mine would be the hammering keys and intermittent "ping" of a busy typewriter.

From as far back as I can remember, my mother would regularly disappear into her study to write on her IBM Selectric, emerging hours later with piles of papers and empty coffee cups, with a dreamy, satisfied expression on her face. When I was in elementary school, she was working on a master's degree in literature, and, by the time I started high school, she had begun an autobiographical novel that would consume her for the rest of her life.

Although I occasionally resented these absences, I was intensely curious about what went on behind that closed study door. What could possibly demand so much of her attention? Then, in third or fourth grade, she gave me a little blue diary with a golden lock and key, and I got my first inkling that writing down one's private thoughts and observations could be kind of ... thrilling.

I'll never forget the delicious anticipation of taking my diary out to the back yard and opening it up to a fresh page. And what did it matter that I wrote things like, "Our cat had kittens today" or "I hate my sister?" A writer was born.

Recognizing a kindred spirit, my mother took me under her wing. Together, we'd pour over my stories and school papers, discussing the finer points of grammar or word choice. Thanks to her tutorials, by the time I left home I could write a well-crafted essay or research paper in my sleep.

But I had learned about more than just form and structure; I had learned to care about precision and clarity in language. My mother's fierce interest in the rhythm and beauty of words had sparked an answering passion in me and this passion would lead me to my career as a professional writer.

The years passed, I moved away, married, had two children and continued to write. Then, in my early 30s, my father died and my mother asked me to help her edit her novel. I immediately agreed, grateful for the excuse it would give us to regularly get together. We soon fell into a comfortable -- and comforting -- routine. Every few weeks, she would come up to New York from her home in Washington, D.C. and stay with me. We would lie at either end of the couch passing pages of her manuscript back and forth, along with a plate of cheese or fruit, and talk about my various cuts and changes. Although our roles as editor/writer were reversed, it felt like old times.

My mother's book needed a lot of paring down -- it was well over 1,000 pages at this point -- but I soaked up every word. At last, I had access to the mysteries of my private, self-contained mother! Riveted, I read about her unhappy childhood: Her glamorous, neglectful parents, her stiff elderly grandparents who took her in when her parents disappeared. I drank it all in, amazed that she'd emerged from this lonely childhood such a strong and independent-minded woman, determined to have a different kind of family -- a different kind of life.

As her editor this time around, I was ostensibly her "teacher," but I quickly understood that I was still learning from her. No longer about grammar and language, but about the value and importance of looking inward, of observing and understanding yourself, and then capturing those insights on the page. This is what she had been doing for all those years in her study, I thought, grateful to have been brought into that process.

In the end, my mother never published her book. I think she couldn't bear to expose so much of herself to the world. But one of the last things she said to me before she died was that she had led a writer's life and that she was proud of her choices. She had no regrets.

There have been many moments since my mother's death in 2001 when I have missed her. On holidays and birthdays certainly, but even more so, on the day I sold my first book. But whenever one of my daughters hands me something they've written and says, "Mom, can you read this for me?" I feel her right there beside me.

Zoe FitzGerald Carter is an author and journalist who has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Vogue and Salon. She is the author of the memoir "Imperfect Endings: A Daughter's Story of Love, Loss and Letting Go." "Imperfect Endings" was featured in O magazine, and was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Read her blog on Red Room.

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Unexpectedly Explicit: The Pitfalls and Advantages of Watching TV With Your Teens

Zoe FitzGerald Carter — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Opinions

Zoe FitzGerald Carter says watching TV -- even when it's racy -- can open up a dialog with your teen. Courtesy Zoe FitzGerald Carter

Recently, I was watching a cable television show with my 14-year-old daughter when, suddenly, the couple onscreen tore off their clothes and began having sweaty and graphic simulated sex. I found myself staring straight ahead, face hot, until the camera cut away.

As the show proceeded, I wondered: Should I have lunged across the couch and covered my daughter's eyes? Turned it off? Said something to make the moment less awkward? (Like, "Check out that guy's pecs! Do you think he works out?")

Or should I have avoided the show all together, insisting we watch something more firmly grounded in PG-13 territory? The thing is, this particular show -- "Shameless" on Showtime -- has great writing and acting, and, as my daughter has informed me more than once, she's "seen it all before."

More importantly, if I did jump up and turn off the television, or if I forbid her from watching "mature" content, I would run the risk of giving her the message that there is something shameful or wrong about sex. At the very least, it would convey that I was personally uncomfortable with the subject.

In the end, I overcame my embarrassment and made a more-or-less-coherent comment about the sameness of Hollywood sex scenes: how passion is invariably conveyed by a high-speed flurry of ripped off clothes and frantic coupling. It was a way of acknowledging the scene's graphicness, while neutralizing the awkwardness of watching it together. I also was trying to put the scene into some kind of perspective for her, letting her know there are many ways to initiate sex and they don't always involve knocked over lamps and broken dishes.

The fact is, with more than 700 cable channels, Netflix, On Demand and Hulu, trying to control what our kids watch is akin to carrying water in a sieve. Let's face it, once they hit their teens, our kids are going to watch what they want to, whether we approve of it or not.

The advantage of letting them do it openly at home -- and even occasionally watching with them -- is that you get to weigh in on it, something that doesn't happen if we censor anything that even hints at adult sexuality.

I still feel caught off guard when a scene suddenly turns R-rated, and I often find myself wishing these scenes weren't quite so crude. But these moments can open the door to important conversations on everything from safe sex to what constitutes a healthy relationship to whether what they are watching is realistic.

Even just knowing that your kids have watched some explicit show or movie can engender a good discussion. When I discovered my older daughter had watched the entire oeuvre of "Sex and the City" with her best friend in eighth grade, I was less than thrilled. Not just because I felt the show was too mature for them, but because it gave such a skewed view of adult female sexuality.

So, the three of us ended up having a conversation about the four women characters and whether or not they were realistic. I took the opportunity to let them know that, in my observations, the one-dimensional sex-obsessed "Samantha" was more of a male fantasy than a real woman.

But even when we successfully turn these situations into "teaching moments," it still can be unsettling to realize our kids are growing up and becoming sexual. And there are times when I find myself missing the days of "Blues Clues" and "Dragon Tales." (Or, in the tween years, "Hannah Montana." Miley Cyrus may be cavorting on stripper poles and taking bong hits these days, but you could always count on her Disney character to keep her clothes on.)

And, in my household, the question of what to watch has long been compounded by the fact that there are four years between my two girls and, so, as often happens, the younger one was exposed to things especially early in her rush to "keep up" with her big sister.

The fact is, our kids are going to end up watching all kinds of things that we probably won't like or approve of sooner or later. But while we still have them at home and they are still willing to sit next to us on the couch and watch something with us, there's no point in militantly policing their innocence in order to make us feel less awkward.

Instead, we need to embrace their growing maturity and, when we can stop blushing ourselves, weigh in on content while we still have the chance.

Zoe FitzGerald Carter is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue and Salon. She is the author of Imperfect Endings: A Daughter's Story of Love, Loss, and Letting Go (Simon & Schuster). She lives in Northern California. Read her blog on Red Room.

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