My kids expect me to know where all of their belongings and tchotchkes are at any given time with zero exceptions. My ability to remember and locate 90% of their asks only heightens their expectations, but it’s a loop I can’t seem to escape even though my mom-brain is overloaded by the inanity of constantly mentally cataloguing not just my own world but the worlds of my entire household.
In the 90% of the time I can retrieve or locate the sought after items (stuffies, clothes, toys, rocks, etc.) I’m usually met stone-cold silence or a matter-of-fact-terseness that implies I satisfactorily did my job as expected. During the other 10% of times, when I have no idea where to find the Extremely Specific Object, it is definitely my fault and I am a monster. Classic mother-blame.
I was thinking about this phenomenon of mother-blame—[patriarchal] society putting the blame on moms for, well, everything—and thinking about how quickly mom-blaming is also adopted by kids, when Julian started throwing a tantrum at breakfast because I didn’t know where he’d left a twenty dollar bill that he’d been given for Korean New Year…in…February.
He’d suddenly had the notion that he needed the money to buy a Coke Zero, a drink offered to him as a special treat on the flight home, that he’d turned down claiming he’d didn’t know what it was. “I thought it was like…ZERO Coke, not Coke ZERO,” he explained, as though that made any sense whatsoever. He became focused on getting the money so he could procure a Coke Zero during the day, but even more fixated on telling me that not knowing where the money was was all my fault.
Once the kids were out of the house for the day, I decided to ask Google “why does my mom know where everything is?” just to see what it would say. What follows genuinely made me laugh out loud. Betty Heath, I hope you have retired. It is not called intuition.
As all parents of children in NYC public schools know, it’s currently day 9 of Spring Break. Whether you’re laying low at home or on a trip somewhere, I assume that most mothers with children under eight are on the brink and really need to get to a yoga class. They’re eager to get the kids back to school-daycare-preschool, or get out for a jog without the constant din of their kids’ requests ringing in their brain. Part of this is the 24/7 nature of school breaks, and the the very real space between the supposed vacation and the actuality of the trip. Either way, the overwhelm always seems disproportionately oriented at the mom—in part because of typical expectations of emotional labor when kids are out of school (childcare, domestic responsibility, trip planning, etc), but also this lesser-discussed and grossly mis-represented subset of emotional-labor which is the expectation that maternal intuition does the work for us, that we can anticipate the needs, locate all the things, and absorb the fault for not being intuitive with greater ease.
In the course of the last 24 hours, Ada wanted to know where I’d put the pop-it ball from her Easter Basket, the French bulldog flip sequin shirt she got from Target after our luggage didn’t make the layover en route to Palm Springs, the sticker she got from the dentist in early March, and the lemon she picked off the tree in our friend’s backyard in Manhattan Beach. Julian needed his Rubiks cube, the water bottle with the UFOs (not the one with robots), and the bag of Skittles he is positive he still has leftover from last Halloween.
The answers were your backpack, the laundry, the art table, the pocket of your coat, the suitcase, the dishwasher, and I’m going to yoga leave me alone.
Recommendations for the kids:
Color-changing magic markers: Marvin’s Magic Markers, a very satisfying set of markers that either have a secondary color or change white when you go over them with the “magic” markers. Not proud to say Ada learned about these on Youtube and informed me that “Mariah Elizabeth uses them on her channel.” LOL.
Kitschy toys: Our friends put this yodeling pickle in Ada’s Easter basket and she’s rarely loved anything more. (Warning: This is extremely annoying but will also make everyone laugh, a lot!)
To read: An absurd and clever and witty and existential graphic novel by Stephen Collins, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil.
Kid sneakers: It’s hard to find easy-on, easy-off, not ugly, not Natives sneakers for kids with wider feet but these Nike Court Borough Low 2 really fit the bill and Julian really digs them. (These Adidas Lite Race Adapt 5.0 are also a good pick).
Baseball caps: Rad River Co. makes great caps for kids in very pleasing colors. Neither of my kids will withstand a chinstrap or a bucket hat but will happily wear one of these.
Recommendations for the grown-ups:
Swimwear: My friend Kalli turned me onto Canadian-brand Fenntessa swimwear which arrived literally as we were walking out the door to catch our flight. Great cuts in great colors and super high qual fabrics. Loving their suits so far.
Shorts: The high-waisted, very comfy and flattering work shorts from Big Bud Press, where I went IRL in Palm Springs. (Not online right now but you can see a lot of other great stuff).
Palm Springs Things: mini golf at Boomers, the Palm Springs Tram, a date shake, the Moorten Botanical Garden, and scrambling rocks in Joshua Tree.
LA Things: The crispy rice salad with avocado and a fried egg and the key lime morning bun at Sqirl, the huevos rancheros and the coffee cake at Gjusta.
To watch: Like everyone else we started watching Beef (New Yorker review) last night and it’s fun to see Ali Wong in this role (vs. her standup) and unsurprisingly coming from A24 the production is top notch. Also enjoyed (but admittedly didn’t love) this interview with Steven Yeun on Talk Easy.
To watch: I also started Wellmania, starring Australian comedian Celeste Barber’s as a health crisis forces her to re-evaluate her freewheeling life.
To drink: The Blue Bottle Shakerato, which you can also make at home. It’s perfect.
Happy almost-the-end-of-spring break. Get outside and see all the flowering things. Your allergies will hate you but it’s worth it!
Oh yes, completely relate. This also pings the category of ‘Mom is expected to remember the names of all the plushies.’ Mind you, my kids didn’t even get into plushies until both were older...so we’re talking an 8-year-old and a 12-year-old, with armloads of stuffed animals, each with very distinct names and personalities and backstories, and the kids both get truly insulted when I can’t recite the minutiae. These are part of the family; you forgot their names?
Oh, and there are duplicates. Clearly, the two identical Minecraft Creepers are completely different: one has a thread extending from his eye; THAT’S Davey. Anyone would know this.
Now the kids are 15 and nearly 11; the plushies mostly live in the drawers under their beds, but I’m sure this will happen again when they resurface 😂 Maybe I should study up.
This reminds me of when I decided (based off a viral tweet) to start charging my husband $5 for every communal object he asked me to locate for him. Once I got to $20 he started memorizing where things go and it's been way less of a problem! If it has to live in my brain, it also has to live in his (and eventually my son's!).