Amateur Hour

by Kimberly Harrington

  I love you.

  The real victims here are the politicians. How can they be expected to do what’s morally right when they lost their way, not to mention their souls, so very long ago? These politicians—most of whom have children, grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren of their own—have no qualms about walking past grief-stricken parents who clutch photos of their murdered children to their chests and telling them in so many words, “You don’t have to go home but you can’t cry here.”

  They have to know, deep down, what they’re doing is wrong, and the world certainly knows what they’re doing is wrong, but they put their suits on like it’s any other job, or maybe they’re convinced they’re righteous people doing God’s work. But they are no more doing God’s work than the ones who have pulled the trigger over and over again.

  And again.

  And yet again.

  Ad infinitum.

  I love you.

  We need to keep our sympathies where they belong—with the powerful and the armed. With those who feel threatened in the face of the most toothless efforts to stem the bloodshed and those who believe scary stories about their guns being taken away. Let’s face it; it would be easier to take away the ocean or the stars. Did you know there are more guns than people in this country? That means everyone in your class already has a gun with their name on it, so to speak. Maybe mention that at share time.

  I love you.

  You could also tell your class that sometimes when I hear a lot of ambulances and fire trucks go by, sirens filling the air with panic, I pay close attention to whether they’re heading in the direction of your school. And if they are, I check Twitter and our town hashtag and the fire department account to see if anyone’s mentioned your school. When I get the all clear I think, Someone else’s tragedy today, suckers!

  And sometimes I wonder, what if one or both of you gets murdered at school? How will I ever forgive myself for sending you there? You know, to school. But do you want to know what makes me feel better? The fact that you could be massacred pretty much anywhere these days! Such a relief, right? So off you go!

  I love you.

  Yes I know, I know, you’re going to be late. Just to wrap up, our country has chosen to shift all the weight regarding your safety away from our lawmakers and gun manufacturers and instead put it squarely on the shoulders of your principals and teachers. These people who kneel down on the first day of school so they’re just as tall as you. These people who shake your hand and say, “Good morning!” and help you rehearse for the school play and take you on field trips to see different rock formations—they are now in charge of keeping you from getting murdered. Which really is the least they can do for all that money they make.

  I love you.

  Oh hey, quick reminder, tell your teacher I’ll be picking you up at two o’clock for your dentist appointment.

  And please don’t get murdered at school today.

  I love you.

  I Don’t Care If You Go to College

  I understand by the simple fact of your birth I was automatically entered in the parental Thunderdome, this arena of demanding you always be in the best-of-the-best-of-the-best possible situations. Where you should learn to nap better than other babies and say the alphabet better than other kindergarteners and take classes that are superior in all ways to the classes that other, lesser / loser children might take.

  I understand we now are supposed to be breeding children in a way that will cause them to advance through various schools and camps, sports teams and volunteer opportunities, in a way that shoots them directly through the childhood pipeline and on to Greater Success™. Oh, I know, parents want their children to be happy too. Extremely, extremely happy. So much happier than everyone else.

  This would all be great except I really don’t care if we skip the private preschool, the private elementary school, the private middle school, the prep school, or the sleep-away camp that costs seven thousand dollars for two weeks. Are you serious? I was thirty-five before I spent that much money on a car. You can spend all your time right here during the summer, putting your clean clothes away, riding your bike in circles, and being bored for free.

  I don’t care if you skip every woo-woo school that replaces math with knitting and English with German. These are the same schools that sent me an informational packet as I desperately tried to find a school for you to attend, and it was like receiving a transmission from outer space. When I tried to walk them through what you had experienced in kindergarten and some of your behaviors and how we were working hard to figure all that stuff out, I was met with a “Well, we do teach a . . . certain range of children.” What’s that? I can’t hear you. I think the phrase you’re struggling to keep clenched between your ass cheeks is rich and extraordinarily neurotypical.

  I don’t care if you skip the extra-extracurricular activities so you can build up your résumé so you can build up your application so you can build up your essay so you can build up your interview potential so you can have a .05 percent chance of getting into a place that is going to leave us a quarter million dollars in debt so you can graduate and not be able to find a job.

  I don’t care if we opt out of the greatest parenting-off of all time. When I applied to college—and by “applied to college” I mean exactly one college, a state college—the only way you’d know if someone got in is if they told you right to your face or called you on the phone. And maybe you’d call them back and get a busy signal and I swear, my kingdom for a busy signal right now. I wasn’t finding out from someone else’s parents that my best friend got into Dartmouth while they shoved that news down everyone else’s throats via screens we all held in our hands.

  I don’t care if you apply to Harvard or Yale or Duke or Columbia or Brown. I don’t care if you skip the Ivy League, the Seven Sisters, or any other schools that go by nicknames. Are we not grown-ups at that point?

  I don’t care if you take the road less traveled. Isn’t that what we’ve been telling kids all along only to then say, as things get real, “Just kidding! DEFINITELY take the road most traveled. Otherwise you’ll embarrass me in front of my friends.”

  I don’t care if you go to college. College is no longer a guarantee of anything. It is not a promise you will have a job or a path. The world has changed since I went to college, when a degree was an absolute requirement if you wanted to do capital M More.

  I don’t care if you buck that system, if you see it for what it is. A potential path but not the only path. There are so many paths available to you now. A gap year, if you have money, if we have money. Internships and apprenticeships. Exploration and research. It is worth taking the time to be curious, to honor where your interests lie. Looking back and trying to sift through it all, when you have obligations and commitments, children and a mortgage, is a game that is not fun.

  This is what I care about—that you and I resist this pressure together. That you think about the big picture and I try to stay out of it, unless you have questions or want to bounce some ideas off of me. But I will not be calling administrators or program directors or HR on your behalf. I will not be smoothing the way for you, although it will be so hard to resist doing just that. I will have to be the elder grown-up here, to not hobble you with my help. You must find your own way, no matter what way that is.

  I am not suggesting you retire to our nonexistent country home to sort this out. This is not an excuse to laze about, to spend your parents’ money. First of all, we don’t have any money. Second, you can be curious while flipping burgers or pumping gas, fighting wildfires or making coffee. Honest work is good work. It will never fail the core of you. It may not make you rich, but there will be nothing to regret.

  I have already been a teenager, a college student, a graduate, a first-job-haver, a quitter, a twenty-year-old, a thirty-year-old, and a failure. I have also been resilient, a winner, and a figured-it-outer. I have already made my own choices and taken my own hits; the time will come for you to
make and take yours.

  Of course I care what you do with your life. I care very, very much. And if college is ultimately where you want to go and the case can be made for it and it won’t bankrupt every last one of us? Then, by all means, have at it. But I will not ask you to determine your life based on mine, your path based on anyone else’s, or to set goals based on what my friends’ children are up to.

  I will be here to listen to you and to guide you, as much as I can or as little as you would like. I will undoubtedly take the wind out of your sails on occasion, but that is the danger of knowing too much. Still, share your cockamamie schemes with me anyway; many a successful career has been launched by just this sort of parental doubting. And I will hang on to the belief that you will be fine. You will be absolutely fine, even if I have to say it over and over again so I don’t freak out with worry.

  I care about everything you do. But mostly? I care that this is your life. Yours.

  Time-Out

  What Do You Think of My Son’s Senior Picture That Was Shot by Annie Leibovitz?

  Wow, senior year. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Seems like just yesterday we were hanging out on the sidelines of the soccer field commiserating over tiny cups of lukewarm apple cider while these guys took shots on the wrong goal, doesn’t it? Time flies; time really just flies.

  The end of senior year; the end of high school; the end of so much. But to new beginnings, am I right? Cheers to that, I mean, it’s been a haul.

  Speaking of senior year, did you see Ethan’s senior picture? Yes, the one with the tiger. The one shot by Annie Leibovitz? Yes, that’s the one. She took a portfolio of images, actually. You really should see the director’s cut, or whatever you call it, of that tiger picture. It’s wide enough to fill a gatefold in, say, Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue. Sure, I guess all their issues are the same size, if you want to be particular about it. I’m just saying I think you’ve only seen the wallet version, which—while still being mind-blowing, don’t get me wrong—really is such a bastardization of Annie’s vision. I call her Annie.

  I’m not gonna lie, standing around some jungle in Bangladesh watching my firstborn being slowly surrounded by eight Bengal tigers while Annie’s twelve assistants and the guy with the tranquilizer gun were frankly a little too far away to really do anything if shit went down for real was a little nerve-racking. But we’ve raised Ethan to be a creative, freethinking, socially aware, kind-to-animals, risk-taking future astrophysicist and humanitarian triathlete with model good looks, so why stop now? Never quit, unless that’s what you’d prefer, that’s what I always say.

  Look, Jim and I said we wanted something different than that local photographer and his prepackaged over-the-shoulder, tilted-head, soft-focus faux-sunset-and-gazebo poses, and boy did we ever get it. I’m not sure the $4,350 worth of custom-made tiger leis—that weren’t even used, PS—were necessary, but who am I to tell Annie Leibovitz that? I’m nobody, that’s who. I’m just the person writing the checks. So many checks.

  I guess my second favorite picture from Ethan’s Transitions: A Portfolio by Annie Leibovitz was the one where he’s half-submerged in a bathtub filled with pale cherry blossoms and only his bare limbs and unshaven face are poking out. Jim said it felt derivative of her milk-bath Whoopi Goldberg shot but, seriously, Jim? Stick to being a part-time dad. For a change.

  I don’t think anyone realizes how much attention she puts into every single detail. Even the details that no one, not even those of us on set or paying for said details, would notice in a million years. She hired twenty-two virgins to de-stem every single cherry blossom. You heard me. You know, cherries, de-stemming, virgins, et cetera et cetera. My mind was blown by the way she took such a lowbrow concept of sexuality and transformed it. This was no Warrant’s “Cherry Pie,” that’s for goddamn sure. And, yes, it took six hours for the whole virgins and de-stemming thing and it made us go over budget by $36,335, but I think you’ll agree the final image is more than worth it. It’s just a treasure. A treasure of unaffordable symbolism. There are no other words for it.

  I’m also partial to the gladiator one, shot in Scotland. Which just between you, me, and that surveillance van, why Scotland? Aren’t gladiators from Rome? I guess it just goes to show that sometimes you need a true artist to question everything you’ve been spoon-fed about history. Because what I should be asking is “Why not Scotland?” along with “Why is everyone flying first-class?” and “WHY IS MEL GIBSON HERE?” Forty pounds of armor, two hundred and fifty extras, one hundred untrained horses, a severe thunderstorm we had to chase in a caravan of twenty rental cars, three production trucks, a weather van, fifty-five livestock trailers, and a handful of loose male lions later, Annie finally captured the image she had so expertly envisioned. Yes that shot alone resulted in overages of close to a million dollars, but how else would Ethan know we love him?

  Anyway, while I have you here, I just wanted to say we’ve so enjoyed being your neighbors. It’s just been such a joy raising our kids together, to see them leap through sprinklers in the front yard when they were little, to watch them grow into the wonderful young men they are, and now to watch as they get ready to head off into the world!

  Related to that last part, li’l change of plans. We’ve come to “unschooling” a bit late in the game so we’ve decided as a family that Ethan is going to delay his start at Columbia this fall and will instead be spending next year (maybe longer!) wandering around in the woods skinning squirrels and whittling. And I’m going to be rejoining the workforce! And Jim is getting a second job. Also, our house is now on the market. Also, our cars. Also, the boat. Also, my wedding dress. Also, do you know anyone who wants to buy my wedding ring?

  But we just couldn’t be happier with Ethan’s senior pictures, you know? I mean, Annie Leibovitz!

  Anne-Marie Slaughter Is My Safe Word

  Hey . . . you. Can we talk? Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad, I just think we should maybe talk a little bit about our relationship. I’m not going to ask you where things are going or anything like that. I mean, that seems a little premature.

  Do you remember that game where you add “in bed” to the fortunes in fortune cookies? It’s more like that. I want to talk about our relationship . . . in bed. It just seems like we’re spending a lot of time together and it feels like things are getting serious. I mean obviously not serious-serious. Not marriage serious. What I’m trying to say is we’re doing it. A lot. And maybe we’re ready to take things to the next level on that front. Feel free to chime in here, but I’m thinking maybe we could do some role-playing, some light bondage, a little spanking or whatever. You know, move things in more of a Fifty Shades of Grey–ish direction but with way better writing and worse lighting.

  Before you say anything, I’m just here to tell you, yes. YES. Let’s go for it. Do you want to go for it? I think we should go for it.

  But before we do, we should probably set some ground rules. I don’t want to make it seem like I have a ton of experience with this sort of thing, but this one article—okay fine, it was more like six different articles on Bustle that I read over and over again—said we should have safe words. So just in case things get a little too rough or out of control we can bring things to a screeching halt before anyone gets hurt.

  Are you okay? You look pale.

  I know I’m probably catching you a bit flat-footed here, but I’ve given this a lot of thought. I mean, honestly it’s all I think about. Both the rough-sex part and the safe-word part. I’ve been thinking about my safe word nonstop for the past six months. Yes, I realize we’ve only been together for like eight weeks or something. I’m allowed to think about things.

  Anyway, I want to share my safe word with you. I feel like this is a really big step for me. I mean, for us, you know, as a couple. Ready? Okay. Here goes.

  My safe word is Anne-Marie Slaughter.

  Now I know that’s a mouthful, ball-gag puns aside, but I feel like it reflects my beliefs about where we’re goi
ng as a country when it comes to the intersection of work, parenting, and caregiving in general. Plus I think it’s a pretty saucy way of honoring the woman who wrote “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” because if ever there was a gold mine of role-playing inspiration, that piece is it. I know it’s not like we have kids or are married or have even been dating—or whatever it is we’re doing—for all that long, but I think it’s important to always be thinking of the relationship between family-leave policy and rough sex whenever possible. Whether that’s with you or whomever I role-play with next.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking, Seems like Anne-Marie Slaughter is a lot to get out in the heat of the moment, and you’re right. So although this is probably against the rules of choosing a safe word, I’ve taken the liberty of coming up with other options including lead parent, family leave, or in a pinch—that reminds me, should we incorporate pinching?—caregiver. I’m also open to using Andy. That’s the name of her husband. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s husband. What? Look, it’s short, that’s all I’m saying.

  I also think, while we’re sort of on the subject, that we should talk about some role-playing scenarios now so we don’t kill the mood trying to sort it out later. One idea I had is you could take our imaginary baby for a walk in the park while I get an imaginary massage and meet my girlfriends for an imaginary glass of wine that will quickly turn into a very real three glasses of wine before I even know what happened. Then I imaginary come home a li’l bit drunk but you are already imaginary asleep because you’re so exhausted from taking care of our sweet imaginary daughter for a change. And I start spanking you like you’re a big baby, not because you’re into that sort of thing but because I need to find some sort of way of venting my boiling frustration at how you so rarely take the lead at home even though we both created this child together and, PS, I’m actually the fucking breadwinner.