Far From the Tree

“I want more than anything for my children to be happy, and I love them because they are sad, and the erratic project of kneading that sadness into joy is the engine of my life …”   

—Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree

A few weeks ago we spent a Sunday at the World Science Festival in Washington Square Park. It was a great event for kids, with robots and space stuff and interactive booths stretching to all corners of the park. The fair was crowded, but we maximized the fun by sticking to the short lines. The face painting line was the one exception. Spending 45 minutes waiting for a full face of itchy paint is not my idea of fun, but Berdey and Bea were so into it I went against my better judgment and lined up.

Berdey was psyched about his “cosmos” design. I was not wild about all the black paint we’d have to scrape off later, but I did enjoy the strut he did around the park looking for compliments. Bea’s paint job was one of the cutest I saw all day, a butterfly as bright and sweet as the face under it. And what did she think of it? Well, she wouldn’t tell me.

That’s the reaction I got after boiling in the sun, strollers and handsy toddlers jabbing me for the better part of an hour. Totally worth it. I oohed and ahhed over her butterfly, but Bea couldn’t muster any excitement. Something about getting what she wanted, and getting attention for it, was too much for her. She tried to smile for a photo but had to look away before the tears came.

Bea is an emotional child. She laughs with total abandon. She cries epically loud. She reads your face and reacts in an instant. And most striking to me, she finds the poignancy in even the simplest moments. A harmless neon butterfly can suddenly become hard-won, too embarrassing or too beautiful to acknowledge.

I often get a sense that Bea is holding back some hidden feeling. She is as playful and open as the next kid, but it’s as if she doesn’t trust her emotions enough to let them be on full display.

Mark and I organize our lives around making our kids happy. I make no apologies for this. Nor do I say it’s what a good parent does. But as the writer Andrew Solomon describes, giving my children a happy life is a driving force in my own life. Even if at times I feel powerless against the sheer strength of this force, I thrive on it. I want to make every butterfly, well, fly.

Far From the Tree is mainly about families dealing with difference in their children—disability, genius, abnormal behavior—and how that difference forms an alternative identity in those children apart from their parents and society at large. It was a gift from Mark, who thought it might help me understand my identity in light of a traumatic childhood. It’s a doorstopper, and it took commitment to get through it, but I’m glad I did. I learned a great deal about subcultures like the deaf and the transgendered, about conditions like autism and schizophrenia, and all the ways parents love their children through the worst of circumstances. And yes, in reading the book, I found new insight into why my apple fell so very far (and perhaps not far enough) from the tree.

Solomon’s book is also about something more universal to the parent-child relationship: “All parenting turns on a central question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves.” Implicit in that question is which approach will make our children happiest in the long run.

If I could make Bea thicker-skinned I would. I worry about mean girls and heartache and loneliness weighing her down. I worry she will be unkind to herself or afraid to live her passions. I worry, full stop. It’s a fine line though. Of course I will try to protect her. Of course I will try to help her mature emotionally. But do I have the power to change the parts of her that make life harder? Do I have the right? Who would she be if she didn’t experience her life so deeply? She wouldn’t be Bea, and she probably wouldn’t be my daughter.

Parenting is an inexplicable, magical proposition. You can analyze it for 700 pages, as Andrew Solomon did, and come away feeling both sameness and difference from the millions of other parents driving their “engines” erratically next to you. 

I want to make my daughter happy, even as I accept the idea that happiness can only be cultivated from within. I love her especially in the moments when life overwhelms her, even as I wish nothing will overwhelm her ever again. I write about her because she is the poignancy for me, she is the joy. I write hoping one day she will read about herself, look up and push forward.

Originally posted on Berdey.com