We passed the baby over the bed, and later we passed tissue, and her Bible with its onion skin pages, its highlighted lessons and dog-eared parables she kept handy with bookmarks
It’s hardly even a matter of debate anymore that the demands of American motherhood have spiraled out of control. Yet there appears to be little sense that the excesses of our parenting culture are anything more than a personal problem We continue to be resistant to thinking more broadly about the subject: about the ways our society have created the high-pressure, high-stakes world of family life.
Somewhere in the post-Katrina wreckage and disarray of my grandmother’s house, there is a photograph of my brother Joe and me, our arms around each other’s shoulders. We are at a long-gone nightclub in Gulfport, the Terrace Lounge, standing before the photographer’s airbrushed scrim—a border of dice and playing cards around us. Just above our heads the words HIGH ROLLERS, in cursive, embellished—if I am remembering this right—with tiny starbursts.
At first, there was nothing to do but watch. For days, before the trucks arrived, before the work of clean-up, my brother sat on the stoop and watched.
0 Comments