So, have your read the recent New York Times article on toddlers and iPhones? It's shocking and alarming! More and more parents (oh, ok, moms -- only one nameless man is mentioned in the entire article and we are not told how he handles his toddler's request) are giving their badly behaved children iPhones in order to shut them up! It's the 21st century version of plopping them in front of a TV! Only worse! Because it's interactive and kids like it better! It's damaging their developing brains! And deluded parents moms (colluding with evil marketers) pacify themselves by imagining some of this is educational for their children!

So, having kept on top of articles criticizing mothers for not being perfect and blaming them for everything that's wrong in the world the latest in parenting news, let me parse this for you:

• Letting your child ever, for one second of her life, touch an iPhone = bad parenting. You let your child touch an iPhone? Congratulations! You just caused brain damage. Your child will grow up to be a friendless alcoholic who is a drain on society. The collapse of Western civilization is entirely your fault, Mom.
• Having a child who is unable to remain motionless and quiet at all times in public without an iPhone = bad parenting. See above re: friendless alcoholic and it all being your fault.
• Wanting 10 minutes of quiet time, free from your child's demands = bad parenting. You must not really love your child if you are not constantly enraptured by them. Plus you clearly don't know how to set limits. Oh, and you're taking the easy way out. There's so much wrong with you, I don't even know what to say, other than: friendless alcoholic!
• Focusing your constant, developmentally enriching attention on your child for every single waking instant of your damn life, so that your child behaves to everyone's satisfaction without a minute of boredom and without ever touching an iPhone = bad parenting. Actually, the worst parenting. Helicopter parenting! (I wish I had a really spooky font for "helicopter," but that's okay, you can just read it in a spooky voice to yourself.) Your child will not only end up a friendless alcoholic, but he will have been so coddled he will be unable to dress himself, leading to an arrest for indecent exposure. Just you wait!
• "Free-ranging" your child so that they learn to entertain themselves without an iPhone = bad parenting. They will just steal someone else's iPhone while you are irresponsibly shirking your duty to watch them every moment (but the right way, you know, not by being a "helicopter parent"). Still, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that your child will not become a friendless alcoholic. But that's only because she won't live long enough. She will be abducted and murdered by a stranger or will drown in a puddle or will fall and break her neck. And you will deserve it. Don't expect any sympathy. You got what was coming to you, bad Mom. And we are all better off without the worthless criminal your child was sure to become.
• Using your own best judgment about the use of various tools and techniques in moderation = bad parenting. Stop being lazy and making excuses for giving your child brain damage by handing him that iPhone for a 15 minute car ride! There is a right and a wrong way to do things. And anything less than 100% perfectly right all the time will lead to friendless alcoholic, drain on society, end of Western civilization, etc.

So, how can you be a good parent? It seems hopeless. Fortunately, there are two options:

1. Provide your child with wooden toys. (And make sure there's no lead paint on those! Oh, and don't be too uptight about it, because nobody likes a killjoy). Also, provide developmentally appropriate books. (And do start with picture books. After all, you did read that article about how bad parents moms are pushing their kids into chapter books too fast, right?) Nothing with batteries, nothing with screens, no BPA plastic, no potentially toxic anything, no choking or strangulation hazards. But do that all effortlessly, because if you suck all the fun out of childhood, you are also a bad mom.
   
   Next, focus your complete, perfect, developmentally enriching attention on your children for some unknown ideal number of hours each day. Too much or too little and we are right back to friendless alcoholic. If you don't already know that perfect number, I'm not going to tell you; all good parents already know it. If you don't, you were clearly raised by wolves yourself, so there's no point. You're beyond hope, and so is your child. You'll have to skip to Option 2.
   
   Now (and this is the most important part) have a child who behaves perfectly at all times and entertains herself on cue in quiet and educationally appropriate ways whenever your perfect, developmentally enriching attention is not on her, and who voluntarily (but politely and without seeming uptight or brainwashed) refuses offers of other kids' inappropriate toys and effortlessly redirects them into fun, educational, developmentally appropriate play. If that sounds tough, it is. Fortunately, there's an easier way. Which brings me to...
2. Be a man. When fathers hand their kids iPhones, it's cute, because those silly men don't know any better. And besides, he's trying to train Junior to be an engineer! When fathers refuse iPhones and the kids throw a tantrum in public, Dad is being a tough disciplinarian who is raising an upstanding citizen.
   
   Be a man and no one will mention you by name in a New York Times article full of dataless speculation about things that might, maybe, in some unknown quantities be harmful to children (or not, but of course they are, we all know that). No one will criticize your sad inability to breastfeed. No one will picture your fatherly face when they read about a 12-year-old who can't operate an ice tray because his "helicopter parents" (read: mom) spent too much time with him, gave him too much attention or was too helpful. No one will imply that you are heartlessly shirking your duties or that you don't love your child adequately if you drop him off at daycare.
   
   Now, I know what those of you born with vaginas are thinking, "But I can't just become a man!" To which I say, sure you can. Halloween is just around the corner and I bet all those fake beards will be on sale soon. And let's face it, even sex reassignment surgery and a lifetime of testosterone supplements would be a hell of a lot easier than Option 1. Or you could, oh I don't know, use your own best judgment and trust other people to do the same. Oh, right! That would be bad parenting.

The school secretary looked at me over the top of her glasses. The look clearly said, "Oh. It's you again. The mom who can't be bothered to get her child to school on time." She knows my daughter and me, which is not a good thing in a large school like my daughter's where I am definitely not on the PTA. She knows me because, I'm the Chevy Chase of moms. Seriously, if I were a mom in a movie, Chevy Chase would play the role of me.

I used to have a different relationship with school secretaries, and a part of me wishes I were wearing a big flashing shirt with a picture of my college diploma on it. It would be my way of saying, "I know! I'm disorganized! But I graduated at the top of my class and went to a really fancy college. I'm super good at all school stuff, except the getting here on time part. Seriously, give me an essay to write on the use of theatrical metaphors in Shakespeare and I am so on it. I can even get an A+ in gym and wood shop, as long as a significant portion of the grade is based on written tests about theory. You would like me if I were a student here. You'd never have a single disciplinary problem with me, and I'd skew the standardized test scores up to make the school look fancy. It's just as a parent that I seem kind of sucky."

School secretaries used to like me, even though they had to write late slips. And I'm an obsessive record keeper, so I know the had to write lots of them. Over the years, my diary entries read something like this:

"Missed the bus. Late for school."
"Missed the bus again."
"Late for school again."
"Walked to school because I missed the bus."
"Got to school on time! But forgot to brush my hair and put on makeup. "

Still the school secretaries would smile and ask if I wanted to pick up my trophy/certificate/medal/savings bond/scholarship check while I was there. It was like being a student athlete, only without the being-good-at-sports part.

And today, I had really genuinely meant to be on time. It was school picture day, so I knew I was going to have to be on my game. My daughter wanted to wear her fanciest dress and have me do her hair in its fanciest style: pigtails. So, she was up on time, eating breakfast and I was focused. No TV this morning. No playing Beatles Rock Band. I combed her hair into two neat pigtails and we put on her favorite dress. Then she grabbed her baseball cap.

"I think that's going to mess up your hair for the picture," I said.

"No it's not," she said, and placed it lightly on top of her head, so that if she leaned forward, it would fall off. She removed it and said, "See?"

"Oh no!" I cried in mock horror. "The hair! It's crazy!" And I laughed, but Janie covered her face with her hat and started to cry, "No, it's not!"

"No, it's not. I was teasing."

"That's not nice."

"I'm sorry. I love you. And it doesn't matter how your hair looks anyway. You're awesome. Let's go."

So Janie mashed the hat down on her head for real, smooshing down the carefully placed pigtails and walked out the door, head down, still mad at me. As we approached the school, I checked her backpack and... Oh crap. There was the picture order form (not filled out) and the envelope for the money (with no money).

"Uh oh. I didn't fill this out or pay the money," I said.

"Oh no!" said Janie, "But Mama, I got dressed in my fancy dress and everything, and now I won't get my school picture taken!" Her lip started to do that quivery thing. Crap. The form says right there on it "No late payments will be accepted."

"It's ok. I can do it right now." So I find a bench outside the school and start pulling out the entire contents of my purse. I definitely have some kind of writing implement in here somewhere. Mini-golf pencil! Score! I fill out the form. Now for the payment. I'll just whip out my checkbook and... Out of checks. Damn. Ok, I'll dig around in my purse for money. Is there a voice coming out of my cell phone? Crap. I accidentally called someone. Ok. Deal with that later. I definitely don't have enough bills, but I do have a lot of change. In fact, five dollars of it: nickels and dimes and quarters, which I stuff into the envelope, which now weighs twenty pounds. This is when my disorganization pays. Literally.

Janie is wide-eyed with delight at watching me count so much change, and clearly relieved that I have saved the day by having barely enough money in my purse for the minimum picture package. "We're going to be late," I said, "I'm really sorry."

"It's ok, Mama," said Janie, and together we walked into the office.

"Reason for lateness?" the school secretary said.

"It's totally my fault," I said. Janie looked up at me and smiled.

"Mom late," she wrote on the late slip, frowning. She handed the slip to Janie, and I watched her bounce off to her classroom, her hat still smashed down over her pigtails, thinking it's not bad to be the Chevy Chase of moms, but I still do want that flashing shirt, just a little.

My son Austen* looks like most nine-year-olds, except perhaps a bit taller, with long legs that carry him swiftly across the ground as he races you to the car or the door of the house or the mailbox. He has curly brown hair, golden brown skin and painfully long, lush eyelashes ringing his deep brown eyes. When he flashes you a big grin -- as he does when he's thinking about something funny that happened at school or his latest high score on a favorite video game -- you see those new adult teeth that still look a bit too big for his mouth, like a young colt's. His fingernails have a tendency to be dirty, for the same reason the palms of his hands are calloused: from swinging on monkey bars and climbing trees.

What you won't notice immediately is his disability...

Read the rest at: http://blog.beliefnet.com/thinplaces/2010/09/perfectly-human-invisible-by-mary-p-jones.html

This, by the way, is the point at which blogging experts say you shouldn't blog. You should always put your best stuff out there and dazzle the Internet multitudes. But I say... Um... Ah, whatever. I don't have it in me to come up with a dazzling response to that either. So, here, my friends, are your bullet points:

• I was working on a guest post for a blog on disability and spirituality that I think many of you will love: Amy Julia Becker's Thin Places. The post won't be up for a week or two. I'll post a link when it is, but do feel free to poke around and get to know Amy Julia in the meantime.
• I've been working on my 1st Step, in depth this time, which has consisted of writing up a history of my life and relationships. I've used a lot of blog material, and it's about (gulp) 50 pages long, which is awful and fabulous. Awful, because I need to edit it down to about 8 in order to present it to my 12 Step group and fabulous because I started this blog with the idea of writing a memoir about my marriage and I've found I have a really solid foundation for that. When I read it to my cosponsor, she and I both cried.
• I have been celebrating! My husband and I have 7 years in recovery, and since many of you know that discovery and recovery happened when I was very pregnant with my daughter, you can probably guess that we've been preparing to celebrate the anniversary of Janie's birth. We've also been celebrating a sobriety anniversary for my husband, who has 4 years since his last major slip. Yay!

My son wanted to go to bed early the other night. Now you wouldn't think that this would be cause for alarm. There are lots of good reasons for him to be tired. Summer break is over. Fourth grade has started. The kids are no longer on a lazy summer schedule. Add the fact that cold germs are flying around, and maybe you have a kid whose immune system is fighting off some annoying but relatively harmless virus. So he's tired. And he asks to go to bed early. Think nothing of it.

Unless you're me, that is. This is An Event Out Of The Ordinary! And whether the Event Out Of The Ordinary is Mark coming home late or Austen going to bed early, these things are Bad (yes, with a capital B). In this case, my money was on leukemia. Either that or some horrible irreversible disease caused by the fact that Austen's diet is so limited.

Ordinarily, I don't share these things with anyone outside of my husband, because the inevitable response (even, to a more limited extent, from Mark, who at least keeps loving me anyway) is: you're crazy, you're so overreacting, he's just tired, and I'm somewhat disturbed by your craziness, so I'll just go stand over here now. Or... If you're so worried about it, you should work harder and do better. Clearly his diet is limited because of your awful laziness and lack of discipline and willpower. People like you are ruining America and are personally responsible for my unhappiness. I demand that you fix this, and if you just [insert long list of advice that hasn't worked yet and/or recommendation to focus solely on this goal to the exclusion of the needs of all other family members], all the world's problems would be solved.

So, it's tiresome, this admitting of strange, secret, niggling fears. It feels like walking a mile carrying a hundred pound weight (which, by the way, wouldn't be so hard if you stayed in better shape, MPJ, so stop complaining). In fact, it's so very tiresome, that I've spent my entire life not telling people (aside from a trusted few) that if my son asks to go to bed early, I secretly think he might have leukemia. And that I might even go so far as to stand next to his bed, biting my bottom lip, my hand hovering over his sleeping head to see if I feel a fever.

Austen is fine, of course. After a few nights of early bedtime, he has been his usual cheerful, energetic self. And I'm fairly certain (well, ok, maybe I will be in a few days) that he doesn't have any life threatening disease at the moment. But I'm also fairly certain that the next time he says his stomach is upset, I'll be biting my lip and furrowing my brows, thinking I may have been wrong last time, but this time...

The one thing I feel I can never be certain of, until the very moment I hit publish, is whether or not sending my whispers of imperfection out along distant electronic tendrils of this universe -- and the relief and recognition and connection and not-aloneness it might bring somewhere -- is worth walking a mile with that damn weight. This summer, it wasn't. But, today, it's back to school time, and unlike my kids, I feel like I have all the energy in the world.

July 4th is Independence Day here in the United States. It is also Israeli Girl's birthday. My husband's relationship with Israeli Girl was his bottom: it was what finally caused him to admit his sexual behavior was out of control, that he was an addict. I began calling her Israeli Girl contemptuously: while not technically a girl, she was only 19 when my 30+ year old husband met her on a business trip abroad and began a several year long relationship with her. I don't feel the same contempt anymore, yet I still cannot quite bring myself to grace her with a name. Somehow, giving her a name gives her some humanness, some power, that I don't yet want her to have.

For years, Israeli Girl was one of the most worrisome splinters in my brain. I remember one year, on July 4th, Mark spent $70 of our money (I was furious when I saw the price) on a single international phone call to her, to say happy birthday. I listened to the entire call, jealously, edgily, because something seemed wrong, suspicious, off. I listened for any hint in his voice of anything beyond friendliness -- some trace of desire, seduction, attraction, deep caring, love -- but I didn't hear them, although I knew the sound of them well. And I settled back into a dissatisfied uneasiness, which persisted, until years later, everything fell apart, and made sense.

After my husband admitted his addiction, admitted that one April day he had finally hit bottom with Israeli Girl, July 4th was tainted. I imagined all of those beautiful fireworks going off to celebrate her birthday. I remembered the phone call, imagined what he must have written to her in those years e-mail messages they exchanged, and I couldn't stand to leave the house. This night four years ago, new in a black place of crushing, disbelieving pain, I cringed at each pop of a distant firework, each whistling rocket, and felt they were searing and exploding inside of me.

The next year, Mark and I were wondering aloud whether or not to go out and try to see fireworks. He was tired, and I was still angry and depressed. We both understood that subtext, although with the kids listening, we simply said to each other, "Should we go?" My son heard us talking and said, with verbal skills newly developed after a year of speech therapy, "I want to watch fireworks!" So, it was decided, and I declared it my Independence Day. I was not going to let a tyrannical past rule my present; I would not let the past cast a shadow that blotted the fireworks from the skies my children saw.

We didn't have a destination that year, we simply drove around until we saw some fireworks and parked the car by the side of the road to watch them. There is a Schoolhouse Rock song my son liked to listen to that contained a line, "Red, white and blue fireworks like diamonds in the sky..." As he gazed up into the sky, my son echoed it back, gasping, "They look like diamonds in the sky!" He was thrilled to see a smiley face in the sky, and to watch the blaze of fireworks that marked the end of the show.

As I was putting him to bed afterwards, I told him that he could go to sleep and dream about trains (which were his obsession at the time). When he said he didn't know what dreams were, I told him they were pictures in your head while you sleep. He looked thoughtful, and said, "We can go to sleep and see fireworks in the sky, and we can see that face and then lots and lots like diamonds in the sky."

See, I worried about Israeli Girl's birthday ruining the fireworks, when in fact, my son's joy, and the magic he saw in the sky, threw a light on that night that no dark memory could blot out. I wouldn't think of missing fireworks after that year.

Last year my daughter was awake and old enough to appreciate the fireworks for the first time. As she walked outside, she saw the moon, which was quite a new and exciting sight to her, since her bedtime was 7 p.m. She asked if the moon could come with us to see the fireworks, and I promised her it would. During our car ride, she looked out the car window, checking to make sure that the moon was following us to the fireworks display. When we arrived, she was thrilled to see the moon, still there, watching. She sat with her mouth open wide through the whole show and was too excited to fall asleep, even so long after her bedtime, on the way home.

She and her brother have been chattering all day about the fireworks, about sitting outside and eating cookies and having the moon there and seeing lots of them explode at the end of the show and waving our flags and singing love songs to our nation, like "America the Beautiful," which gives me goosebumps (truly) every time I hear it. My life may not always be perfect, and my country may not always be perfect, but both of us are free.

Happy Independence Day. Enjoy the fireworks.

In the dream, I was driving on a highway laid out like silver thread between my home and the nearest big city. My husband was seated next to me, smiling, and I could feel the kids safely at home, laughing with their babysitter. It was just before sunset; the day's dying rays were golden on the water and the softly swaying dry grass as we approached the bridge.

My husband looked at me, and for a split second, I lost focus. I stopped looking at the road, and the car simply drifted serenely off the bridge and started plunging down, down before I knew we were in danger. We fell like Alice down the rabbit hole, falling for so long we seemed to hang suspended in the golden air. I felt like one often does feel in an accident: as if I were seeing everything in slow motion and if only my body would move as fast as my mind, I could do something to prevent the inevitable moment looming ahead.  But the water waited unyielding below us. And I knew we were going to die at the end of that long fall. I had killed both of us in that momentary flicker of attention. My children were going to grow up without parents.  I just hoped they would be asleep when the babysitter called and called the cell phones that would ring on without answer, wondering why we were so late.

I turned to Mark to say I was sorry for killing him; sorry that he was paying the price for my inattention. And he lookedsaidthought, "We all make mistakes, sometimes very bad ones." But he didn't blame me. He held out his hand and we sat, holding hands and falling, waiting for the impact that never came, as I woke with a start. I sat up, shivering, as the images flashed on my waking mind in the cold gray dawn, and I assigned the dream the moral: "I am feeling guilty for not paying enough attention, not being present enough, for my kids."

Irrational as I know it is, I have been terrified of driving that highway ever since. The dream was so vivid, that when I enter the stretch of road leading to the bridge I can see my dream self plunging off the side. If I hit an uneven stretch of pavement and the car jolts or swerves slightly, I feel my heart racing, my body taut with anxiety. I fear that at any minute, I might lose focus, lose control and lose everything. It only takes an instant to make a mistake from which there is no recovery.

I was driving that highway today, with my kids unusually occupied with drawing in the back seat, when I started to feel numb with panic thinking about the bridge. My kids' lives depended on me. Other drivers lives depended on me. And am I really to be trusted? My hand could slip on the steering wheel. Or jerk. Or freeze. What if I have a seizure? What if I fall asleep? What if I get a brain aneurysm? What if I suddenly become diabetic right here in the car and my blood sugar becomes unstable and I pass out? What if I panic so much I black out?

Of course, the only real problem was the panic, which was stubbornly refused to respond to either rational thought, meditation techniques or faith. I eyed the traffic, wondering where it might be safe to pull off and breathe, grumbling to myself, "I so need to talk to my doctor about anxiety meds. This is ridiculous. I can't function. What is really going on here? This isn't just about a stupid dream."

And my mind, as if relieved to have finally been pressed with a direct question, brought up an image of my destination: a park that formed a green oasis in the barren concrete, steel and glass of the city. We were meeting friends there, visiting from out of town. But eight years ago, on the day he hit bottom, my husband went on a different kind of visit there: a picnic to that park with one of his... What's the word for it? Lovers seems too intimate, mistresses too urbane, and acting out partners, too sterile. In any case, they met. The picnic was the appetizer, the foreplay, the prelude, the rising anticipation. Rolling the food on their tongues, then wiping their lips, packing the remains and walking, toward her house, her bed. I can see the way his hand slipped down the small of her back as she pulled him close under a tree for a kiss. Right there in the park. For anyone to see.

We were going to drive past the street to her old house on the way to the park. We were driving on the highway Mark had traveled, secretly, back and forth, from her house to our own. Was this panic -- over this highway, over loss, over lack of control, over mistakes from which there is no recovery -- not about the dream but a twisted response to past trauma? Was the dream, perhaps, not really about quite what I thought it was either? Those thoughts washed through me like water, like crystal clear liquid truth, taking the panic and the looming shadow of future annihilation away with them, leaving me staring at an old scar, still sometimes tender to the touch.

"I hate that you don't have a blog," said a woman about to undergo heart surgery, as she gazed sincerely up at her boyfriend, "I hate that I don't know what you're thinking."

Mark and I burst into raucous laughter and had to pause the episode of House that we were watching to wipe away our tears of glee and catch our breath.  Seriously?  "I hate that you don't have a blog?" Really?  Yep.  That's what we personal (and dare I say it, female?) bloggers are all supposed to be like.  So divorced from real life connections, so caught up in deluding ourselves about these supposed "friendships" we have online, so obsessed with our hit count, so eager for an audience, so narcissistic, that we can't even talk to our partners or parent our children, at least not unless there's a screen between us.

The comments on the recent Motherlode post on "mommy blogging" back up this perception. There are lots of women there talking about the community and connections they've made and about the therapeutic release of writing.  And there are plenty of others saying those connections aren't real and that the children of these deluded, self-obsessed women are being sorely neglected.

And it makes me wonder, why do people think bloggers and other social networkers are so crazy and scary and dangerous and delusional?  Why is an online presence portrayed as something that precludes, rather than enhances or supplements, other relationships?  What makes friendships "real?"  Why do we believe that people don't know what "real" relationships look like?  Why does it matter so much how people (particularly women) spend their free time?  What makes us believe that online time is not, in fact, free time, but time that is being taken away from more important things?  For that matter, why do we always have to be doing something "important?"  What makes something "important" in the first place? (From what I read "important" is anything from things I'd count as truly important -- like spending time with loved ones -- to things I consider not at all important -- like making sure the house is tidy and/or we're making more money.)  What makes it ok for a published author of personal essays or a memoir to write in detail about herself, her life, her children, her friends, her family, but not ok for bloggers to do the same?

If there are any universal answers to those questions, I don't know them.  What I do know is that there are hundreds of people who have passed in and out of my life and have all seen a sliver of me, both online and offline: sitting next to me in a movie theater, driving me a few miles in a taxi, clicking on a link to my blog and clicking right back out again.  I know that there have been dozens to hundreds of lurkers in my life, both online and offline, who have seen bits and pieces of me (and not always the nice bits, nor for that matter, always the nasty ones): the neighbors who (assuredly) heard Mark and me arguing or laughing or having sex through the thin walls of our old apartment just the way we heard them, the folks at the next table in the restaurant listening to our conversations, the people silently reading my blog.

I know that I have hundreds of people I've talked to and spent time with each day over the years, who've shared a workplace or the classroom or the social space, both online and offline: coworkers, high school and college buddies, neighbors, moms at my kids' schools, folks in online discussion groups, blog readers, fellow bloggers.  Some I know well, have fun with and consider good friends.  Others are acquaintances whom I don't know, and still others I don't really like at all (and vice versa, I'm sure).

Then I know that there are people in my life, both online and offline, who are my soulmates: the ones who are family or like family, the ones who would know my voice (spoken or written) anywhere, the ones I call first when I have joys or sorrows to share, the ones who can come into my house and help themselves to a drink or a snack, the ones I laugh and cry and eat ice cream with, the ones who see me -- as me, all of me -- and get me, and are there for me, as I am for them.

Some of those soulmates are people like Jay (whom I've known for almost a decade now) and JW (who is my son Austen's absolute favorite person in the world to talk to long-distance (just don't tell his grandparents)); people I met online.  I didn't know what they looked like or what their voices sounded like or get to see or touch them in the flesh for years.  And some of those soulmates are people like my husband Mark or my friend Kelly; people I happened to meet "in real life."

I also know that I am fortunate enough to have six hours a day free when my kids are in school and my husband is at work.  I know that I spend the vast majority of that time on housework, household administration and errands that are unseen by the and unacknowledged by people both in and out of the blogosphere.  And I know that I take some of those six hours, as a gift to myself and a support to others, to write.  I know there are people who don't respect that or see it as useless and "a waste of time" because I either don't get paid (or don't get paid much) for that.  I also know that I love my life and the way I spend my days, and that although what I contribute to the world (whether in doing the dishes or feeding my kids or blogging) may seem small, it's important: just as, in my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's life and work in his small town was as valuable as anything he ever could have done if he'd gone out and built those bridges and skyscrapers he dreamed of.

No doubt there are people out there who become so obsessed with some aspect of their life or group of friends that they ignore other relationships.  No doubt there are people who can't tell the difference between a genuine friendship and the high of a falsely instant connection (I'm married to someone in recovery for just that, remember?).  No doubt someone, somewhere in the world, has to conduct a poll of everyone she knows before making major life choices.  No doubt there is a mom out there somewhere who is ignoring her kids while she does something else.  But all of that is hardly new to the Internet, just as "real" friends in my life haven't been confined strictly to people happen to have met in person.

And that's why Mark and I laughed as we listened to that fictional blogger on House.  We laughed knowing that I blog (about intimate details of our lives) and he doesn't.  We laughed knowing that we were snuggling on the sofa watching House after talking for over two hours -- about everything from mundane topics, like scheduling the kids' doctors appointments, to quite serious matters about our marriage -- during which I never once wistfully opined that it would go better with a keyboard in hand.  We laughed because Mark knows me better than anyone, online or off.  And we laughed because we both knew exactly what bits and pieces of those few hours spent talking and watching TV would go on the blog and what never would.

Most parents hear it at one time or another.  Some variation on the universal theme of parent awfulness: "I hate you. I wish you were dead. I don't like you.  I'm not going to be your child anymore.  I want a new Mommy/Daddy.  You're the worst parent ever."  These pronouncements are usually inspired by something truly terrible we've done, like forbid our child from diving head first off a playstructure onto concrete.  (Actually, a lot of people married to addicts (for whom the rest of this story may also resonate) hear that kind of thing too, and usually for the same reasons.)  And those words can hurt, even when we know they're just a passing storm of anger and frustration.

But yesterday, when Austen screamed, "I don't love you!" it made me feel, well, loved.

Austen is autistic, and it comforts him when the little details of his world are neatly in place.  One of these details is the need to have all words printed neatly in capital block letters; no lower case letters and no script allowed.  If one of us should write something using any lettering that is offensive to Austen's discriminating eye, he will not rest until he has fixed it for us.  Grocery lists can be found with each item crossed out and correctly rewritten above.  Signatures on birthday cards are blacked out and bear neatly printed versions of the name instead.  If you want to keep a document safe from Austen's pen, you should generally keep it out of his sight.

I've recently been reading over some old journals and letters while doing some 12 Step work, and my daughter Janie has enjoyed having me read to her about what I used to do when I was a child.  Yesterday, I was reading to Janie when (and you can see where this is going, I'm certain) Austen, mistakenly thought to be safely occupied with something else, noticed that (shockingly) I didn't not print every item in my childhood diary in capital block letters.  And this was an outrage.  A crime.  An atrocity.  Austen wanted to fix that journal for me right away.

Of course, the answer to that was no.  No, you cannot cross out every word in my precious junior high diary and rewrite it.  I took the journal and locked it up safely in my room.  At which point Austen told me to please walk away and not look at him.  Nothing to see here. Move along.  He'd just be over here trying to pick the lock.  Just ignore him.

So, being the sharp and totally onto-him mother that I am, rather than walking away, I stopped and said, "Buddy, I really can't let you have that diary.  I wrote it when I was very young and it's the only one I have.  It's a part of who I was and who I am, and it's very special and important to me.  If you cross out the words, you'll be damaging it, and I'll be sad and angry and hurt. I'll feel like you would feel if I wrecked up your electronics collection, which I know is really special and important to you."

And that's when the screaming started.  "No!  You must let me have it!  Promise?  You have to let me destroy it!"

"No, I can't do that, buddy."

"Yes, you can!"

Austen's anger usually comes from anxiety, so I took a guess as to what he might be anxious about and tried to reassure him.  "I love you no matter what.  I know I said I would be angry if you damaged something that is important to me, but I would still love you, always and always."

"Well, I don't love you!" he shouted.

"Do you feel that way because you're angry at me?" I asked, trying to help him label his emotions.

"No," he said, through tears of frustration, "Because I have to destroy your diary, and it will hurt you.  And if I love you, I don't want to hurt you.  But if I don't love you, it's ok.  And I really need to destroy it, because it's WRONG in lower case!  So, I don't love you!"

Oh.  Wow.  I'd really misunderstood and misjudged: the level of his need, the level of his empathy the level of his emotion.  But all I could think right then was that this was the best "I don't love you" I'd ever received.