Yesterday I brought a friend 7 pounds of frozen chicken. It was the only thing I could offer when she and her family went into sudden home quarantine. Her husband’s doctor declared his relatively mild symptoms “assumed Covid-19” and told him to stay hydrated and as separate as possible from the rest of the family. So he’s spending the next two weeks in the guest bedroom, which got me thinking that they’re pretty lucky to have a guest bedroom. Continue reading
Election Day
I called the doctor’s office first thing Monday morning – the one I visit when the tendinitis in my elbow flares up or my neck is so stiff I can’t turn my head. Today it is a deep pain where my low back meets my hip. I can’t bend over far enough to pull on my left sock.
Help me, I said to my husband. I can’t get my sock on. I had tried squatting, bending forward, bringing my foot toward my chest. No luck. Too stiff. Too stuck.
David rolled up the black sock like you would for a small child, and slipped it over my toes, across the arch, to my ankle.
When I arrived at the physiatrist’s office for my appointment, I handed over my insurance card, signed another HIPAA release, settled in to wait, while a large TV screen silently played the opening credits of a movie I hadn’t seen. I thought about my absentee ballot, which I still hadn’t completed, even though the primary was scheduled for the next day.
The exam was friendly and brief. I bent over, twisted left and right, laid on my back and pointed my legs in the air, pushed against the doctor’s hand. No neurological damage. All the important stuff works. He found a spot in the lower right quadrant of my back and pressed.
Ouch! Yes. That’s the spot.
Muscle, he said. Ligament. Some arthritis. Maybe a disk. No need for imaging. Ice. Anti-inflammatories. Ice, 20 minutes, 5 times a day. Lots of ice.
As we get older, it doesn’t take much to trigger that kind of muscle strain, he reminded me.
As we get older, and he meant himself too. We began the visit with small talk about our college age children. Where are they? What are they doing? What do they care about?
I am getting older. I am more prone to injury. I weigh 10 pounds more than I did two years ago, despite no change in diet or exercise. I am more tired.
I left the office with a prescription for Naproxen and a follow up appointment that I’ll probably cancel. By next week, we both know I’ll be fine.
Later in the day, I stopped at the City Clerk’s office to turn in my absentee ballot. When Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the primary race last week, I didn’t know what to do. Who would I vote for? Biden? Sanders? I dislike them both equally, for different reasons. My children were lobbying hard for Sanders.
You can only ask me once a day who I’m voting for, I told my youngest, who follows polls and reads and listens to everything possible about the election. Birch is 15, the only one in our family who can’t vote, a passionate force for change, opposed to the World Bank, the US military, our health care system, capitalism in general. I admire the passion. Sometimes it’s exhausting. Still, I tell myself, I’d rather have kids who care, even when I don’t agree.
One more day till the Michigan primary, and I had been holding onto my absentee ballot for weeks. I voted yes on the millages. That was easy. Yes to the art museum; yes to funding for the roads.
Candidate for president. I left the space blank and tossed the ballot in my bag. I’d finish after I dropped off Birch at martial arts. On the way there, I explained that I was voting for Biden, that I had finally decided he was my best option.
Silence from the passenger seat. Then disappointment, a flood of last-ditch arguments.
I listened, as I had been listening all month. I pointed out again that there are more than 35 years between us, and while I don’t expect my children to adopt a pragmatic point of view, I also don’t want them to deny my position.
Disagree with me, but don’t dismiss me.
Birch looked pained. Shocked that I could choose Biden in all his sexist, homophobic, transphobic, elitist horror.
And then I had an idea. I could let my nearly 16-year-old child vote in my place. I could fill in the ballot with Birch’s choice, not mine. I had come close to choosing Sanders myself. I had been swayed almost daily by arguments for and against both candidates. Every time I read an article about the fate of Elizabeth Warren’s supporters, I felt like I was reading about myself.
Was this ethical? Was I acting rashly? Did it matter?
My back hurts. I know that politics is a messy game. I’m frustrated that I can’t vote for Warren. So I took my black felt tip pen and filled in the space for Sanders. Birch offered a quick smile and got out of the car for martial arts.
When I told my sister, she was not impressed. You just decided not to vote, she said. Maybe it’s something I can’t understand because I don’t have children.
My husband liked the idea. I thought of doing that myself, he said, but I decided not to.
If you’re reading this and you don’t agree with my political choice, we can have that discussion another time. I know – Israel, health care, etc. etc. This isn’t really about elections. My sister is right. It’s about parenting. And this is the parenting choice I made this day under these particular circumstances. I feel good about it.
Tuesday night I’ll lay on an ice pack and watch the returns come in. After class, Birch said thank you and made one last request: I wish I could have an “I voted” sticker.
A Prayer for Engagement and Community
There is a spot in the Shabbat morning service where we pause and acknowledge the community. We bless our leaders throughout history; we pray for those who keep the synagogue running and fund the kiddush; we pray for our country, and we pray for Israel.
But what about those sitting next to us in the pews? How do we acknowledge, embrace and value one another? When our rabbi asked me to consider answering those questions with a new prayer, I spent months pondering the answers. I journaled about them, asked them aloud, and posed them to myself. I even searched the Internet. Surely someone had attempted this before. I found prayers celebrating disabilities and prayers for queer communities and mental health. But I couldn’t find one that asked me to slow down and pay attention to the assumptions I make about the people around me. Continue reading
Gender: Listening without Judgement
I listened to the interview Saturday night, under the covers with David, not sure if I would still like my answers to Piya Chattopadhyay’s questions.
Piya, a Canadian radio personality, hosts a program called “Out in the Open” on CBC Radio, where she explores one topic each week from multiple perspectives. The most recent episode, Whither Gender, includes an interview with me, talking about coming to terms with having a non-binary child.
The show offers a multi-faceted exploration of how we think and talk about a certain gender construct. Is it as complex and complete as it could be? Certainly not. But it’s still excellent. And anyway, that’s not my point.
Pronouns – Self-Correcting, Haircuts and Parenthood
Last week I received this comment on my blog, I am the Parent of a Non-binary Child:
I’ve read this post more than once since my kid came out to me as non binary. I just need to give a shout out somewhere to all the self-correctors out there. For all those friends and advocates who are working hard to make sure my kid feels accepted for who they are… Every time you use an old pronoun and then immediately update in an almost hyphenated fashion…we hear you. We hear you trying. And we thank you for your efforts. It’s not automatic or easy to make this adjustment or to admit a mistake in the same breath, in your very next word… to a child. I just want to give credit where it is due.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I just had this conversation with Amy, who has been cutting my hair for as long as we’ve both had children (me first!) She cut my children’s hair when they were younger, and always asks about them. Sometimes she gets Miriam’s pronouns wrong, and I correct her. And we laugh. Because being a mom is complicated enough without giving each other a hard time for something that’s hard to remember.
Don’t apologize, I tell her. Don’t apologize, I tell my friends, my extended family, the people I meet along the way. Just correct yourself. Say it again. Listen to what “they” sounds like, what it feels like in your mouth. Continue reading
Happy Children’s Day (in Argentina)
How cool to receive this email last Thursday, with a Spanish translation of my Free Press article:
Hi Susan, my name is Ailén, I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina and I’m a member of the Asamblea No Binarie here. We’re a nonprofit organization and activism group of non binary people. We found your article, I am the parent of a non-binary child, very interesting, and specially due we’re close to a holiday, child’s day. We’ll like to publish your article and its proper translation into spanish in our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/asambleanobinarie/ .
Happy Children’s Day! Here’s the Facebook post from Argentina.
Free Writes
This morning, Michael, my favorite yoga teacher, started class with a prompt.
Fill in this blank, he said: “I should be ______________.
The first word that popped into my mind was “writing.” Continue reading
Jew-ish Studies and the Search for the Perfect Chocolate Chip
My friend Rachel just moved to town, which makes me very happy. Before we can hang out and enjoy living in the same city, however, she has some important business to take care of. I am a prime resource for questions like these:
- How does our town handle recycling? (Throw everything in the big green bin.)
- Do I know a good cleaning person who can show up the day of closing and scrub the empty house before the movers show up the next day? (Yes. Three texts and one hour later we’re all set.)
- Do I have a set of allen wrenches? (Yes, but I can’t find it.)
And my favorite: Where can I buy pareve chocolate chips?
For those who don’t understand kashrut, this may seem like an odd question, but it is extremely important to those of us who keep kosher and want to serve non-dairy chocolate chip desserts after our (usually meat) Shabbat dinners. In the interest of peanut butter chocolate chip cake, I cannot afford to run out of pareve chips.
Of course I knew where to them nearby. I even sent her a photo of my favorite brand, available at Whole Foods, Holiday Market and One Stop Kosher (which has an entire shelf dedicated to such things.) You used to be able to buy pareve chips at Trader Joe’s, but that brand is now considered dairy – an immeasurable loss to people like me for whom TJ’s is grocery stop #1.
The College Essay Connection
Reminiscing about TJ’s chocolate chips reminded me of one of my son Sammy’s college essays.
Sammy didn’t get in to the University of Chicago, for whom he composed this hilarious piece. He’s headed to the University of Michigan (big cheers from the home team!) But it would be a shame to relegate this essay to the Google Drive archives. With his permission, I share it with you.
First, the prompt: Due to a series of clerical errors, there is exactly one typo (an extra letter, a removed letter, or an altered letter) in the name of every department at the University of Chicago. Oops! Describe your new intended major. Why are you interested in it and what courses or areas of focus within it might you want to explore? Potential options include Commuter Science, Bromance Languages and Literatures, Pundamentals: Issues and Texts, Ant History…
Jew-ish Studies, by Sammy Saperstein
After nine years of day school, I figured that I was done learning about Judaism. I’ve learned Hebrew, I’ve studied Torah, and I’ve memorized virtually the entire morning service. I took a break from Judaic studies by going to a public high school, and figured I would do the same in college by not entirely ignoring my religion, but not making it a focus of my studies. That was until I heard about UChicago’s “Jew-ish Studies” major, a major that focuses on things sort of Jewish but not directly tied to the religion. Core classes include “Jews on Christmas” (JIST 20081), investigating the annual migration of Jews to local (non-kosher!) Chinese restaurants on December 25th, and “Sleepaway Camp,” a study of the decade-long mating ritual that is Jewish summer camp, in which campers are subtly led into a hook-up culture from a young age, culminating in their time as counselors, at which point the culture continues, ideally leading to a long-term relationship, children, and the continuation of the Jewish people. While I feel I’ve had enough of traditional Jewish Studies, Jew-ish Studies is perfect.
One subdiscipline that fascinates me is study of “The Jewish Goodbye.” This interdisciplinary subject takes a deep dive into the complex sociological relationships between Jewish friends and family that lead to infamously long goodbyes. It’s a rapidly developing field, with cutting edge ideas employing Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity to explain how, during a Goodbye, 30 minutes can feel like 10 seconds to a parent reliving with their friend the shock they felt when they first discovered that Trader Joe’s chocolate chips were no longer non-dairy and could therefore no longer be used for meat-based Shabbat desserts, while simultaneously feeling like two hours to a kid who just wants to go home and change out of their business-casual synagogue clothes and into the pair of bar mitzvah party giveaway sweatpants they received the week before.
Within the study of Goodbyes comes study of The Shift. This phenomenon, which is defined as the moment (or set of moments) at which a goodbye goes from feeling long to feeling short, has been observed both in a lab setting and in the field across denominations, demographics, and generations. Theolog-ishians are currently attempting to establish the age/time at which The Shift occurs. There are some fundamental questions people have about The Shift, such as: When does it occur? How does it occur? Do all Jews experience it the same way? Why does it exist in the first place? Over the past few years, a number of different camps have sprung up , each with its own theories. These camps largely focus on the first question (When does The Shift occur?), as the others are deeper questions that require more of a solid theoretical basis than we have right now. There are the Evolutionists, who believe that The Shift takes place over one’s entire lifetime and that Goodbyes gradually feel shorter and shorter. Mathematical Jew-ish Studies oftens favors the Evolutionists, modelling the age vs time observed as a logistic decay curve with the bulk of the decay occurring around the ages of 30-50. Discretists, of which I am a member, believe that instead of a gradual change The Shift occurs at a certain moment in one’s life. If this is the case, it remains unclear whether that moment is unique to each individual or if it’s triggered by a particular event.
It’s also important to note that Discretists view The Shift as a product of one’s environment, instead of a natural/inherent process like the Evolutionists. This means that a completely isolated Jew would not experience the Shift, but this is almost impossible to prove. Any experiment involving isolating someone for an entire lifetime would never pass an ethics board, and such a Jew would have no one to say Goodbye to rendering the experiment useless.
As my senior project, I hope to run an experiment to test my hypothesis, which predicts that The Shift occurs immediately when one becomes a parent. While this is a highly controversial theory, as it fails to offer any indication into what happens to Jews who never become parents (or why The Shift isn’t observed in non-Jews who do become parents, for that matter), finding evidence that it’s true would be a remarkable step forward for the field. There are good reasons to believe this is the case. For example, one’s role in one’s Jewish community changes drastically when one becomes a parent, so it would make sense that one’s perception of the Goodbye would change as well. Additionally, The Shift has, up to this point, only been studied in child/adult pairs, so there’s little reason to believe that childless adults feel any sort of time distortion during a Goodbye. And while Evolutionists will use the problem of the childless adults to argue that The Shift affects Jews according to age rather than by any social markers, I view it as further evidence of the importance of becoming a parent to one’s Jewish identity, especially in the case of Goodbyes.
Some say that the “Jew-ish Studies” major is a waste of time with no practical applications, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. While it’s unlikely that students will end up as clergy members or Talmudic scholars like their traditional “Jewish Studies” counterparts at other schools, many find jobs as religious preschool teachers, deli entrepreneurs, or religious heads at sleepaway camps. All of these are prestigious and clearly show that Jew-ish Studies is not only a fascinating area of study, but potentially lucrative as well.
While to the uninitiated it may seem like I already have a strong understanding of the subject, that is far from the truth. I’ve been fascinated by Jew-ish Studies ever since I found out about it, so I’ve spent a good deal of time over the past year reading books and watching videos made for laypeople on the subject. This is why I’m so excited to continue this study in college. I have enough knowledge to understand the basics, but still yearn to dive deeper and learn from experts in the field. For the next four years, I’ll be focusing on Jew-ish Studies as much as I can.
The Atlantic: Other Parents Respond
For those who are wondering, here’s the full reaction to the Atlantic article, to be published on the magazine’s Masthead website (paid members section). My response was similar to others. Continue reading
The Atlantic Misses an Opportunity to Bring a Nuanced Discussion of Gender to the Mainstream
After the Atlantic published a cover story by Jesse Singal Monday entitled “When Children Say They’re Trans,” I received an email from Caroline Kitchener, an associate editor at the magazine. It read, in part:
I’m looking for parents of trans or gender non-binary kids to respond to our latest cover story. Much of the piece reads almost like a letter to this group—of which I know you’re a part—and we’d like to start a thoughtful, productive conversation around it. I read your great essay in the Detroit Free Press, and am wondering if you might want to participate: What does Jesse get right in the piece, and what does he get wrong? What could be the potential implications of a piece like this? Continue reading
Writing It Down 