The Evergreen Sweetness of the Magnolia Mother

Over at a far more serious website, the Wall Street Journal has posted an opinion piece entitled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” by Amy Chua, the Yale Law professor whose paen to Chinese-style parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has set off a depth charge of angst among the mom population. Chua posits that Western moms are far too permissive and don’t demand enough of their darling offspring, and that’s why parents who are hardcore (think Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman or R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket hardcore) are much better and raise more successful kids. Take that, lazy Westerners.

To be fair, Chua claims that the red-flag title of the WSJ piece was not her idea, and that her book, while detailing her strenuous and exacting parenting methods, does so amidst large doses of self-deprecation. She knows she’s a stereotype (and is producing two über-stereotpyical Asian daughters to boot), but she’s planted that flag and is willing to die for the ideals it represents.

To which this Southern mama says, “Bless her heart.”

There has to be more to motherhood than turning your home into a battle zone of three- and four-hour instrument practices (piano or violin only!), homework drills, screaming, and tension. And I think Southern mothers have figured out how to do that. Children don’t need a Tiger Mother; they need a Magnolia Mother.

The Southern magnolia grandiflora is an amazing tree. Its strong wood can be harvested for building and furniture making, The light citronella fragrance of its blossoms is lovely and does a nice job repelling mosquitoes. It’s an evergreen, and its glossy emerald leaves provide shade in the summer and decor throughout the year. The blossoms have long been a symbol for beauty and grace. These trees live hundreds of years and glorify whatever plot of ground they happen to be planted in. Kinda like Southern mamas.

Magnolia moms don’t scream and threaten because it’s tacky. They’re demanding, but not abusive. A magnolia mom loves to applaud at music recitals and is happy whether her seedling is a bass guitar hero or a baritone enthusiast. Her arms are wide and sheltering. She’s strong, with deep roots, and is beautiful even through the hurricane-force winds of life. She can be bruised, but not broken. Her children learn the strengths of patience, grace, and permanence in her shade and grow toward the sun and blossom when they find their own ground to sprout in.

The best advice on life I ever received was a simple phrase from my own magnolia mama, “Remember who you are.” No screaming, no threats, just a gentle reminder that my behavior and accomplishments were a reflection of not only myself, but the family who raised me.

I’m proud to come from magnolia groves as rich as the ones who produced my mother and father. Tigers may be fascinating to look at, but there’s a reason they shouldn’t be turned loose in the general population. They aren’t safe. Magnolias, on the other hand, always make you feel at home.

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Trickle, Trickle

Remember that old Woody Allen quip, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans”? We’re living that at Chez mimi right now. Here we are, all excited about the new year, ready to remake our entire financial and creative selves, when we realize that there’s water on the floor of our den. Not much water, but enough. We can’t find the source. The sinks aren’t leaking. The cabinets are dry. It’s not raining. As Florida residents, we know what that means...the two most dreaded words in home ownership: slab leak.

Out comes a plumber to check. Sure enough, it’s a slab leak, probably underneath the den floor. But where under the floor? Right at the door where we get the puddle? Closer to the kitchen? By the fireplace? Anywhere we finally find it, we’re screwed because a slab leak means ripping up the floor. A slab leak in our case, when you remember that we already had a leak between the meter and the house this year, means the five most dreaded words in home ownership: time to repipe the house.

Five weeks’ worth of scampering in and out of the house to turn the water off and Laura Ingalls Wilder-ing as we brush our teeth (We have a pitcher and a basin! How quaint!), the nice plumbers are here. It sounds like giant mutant squirrels have taken over our attic and they’re dragging in moose-sized kill. We’ve cleared out every sink cabinet in the house. Soon the drywall will be Swiss cheese. Two days of this, mind you, and then we have to cough up a check for $3200 (which explains the five weeks’ worth of scampering in and out).

This hurts. But at least this weekend I’ll be able to take a full-powered HOT shower and get ice out of the fridge. Deep yoga breaths...

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Father Time, Baby New Year, and Mother Nature

If you survived the holidays intact, you’re probably in full resolution mode right now. Santa Claus has stepped aside for Father Time and Baby New Year. These two figures have more impact on our writers’ lives than we imagine.

Take Father Time, for instance. Bowed and bearded, this old man reminds us of all the time we’ve spent the last year banging our heads over writer’s block, suffering through rejections, enduring stinging (yet helpful!) critiques, and wasting time playing Angry Birds when we could have been writing. Father Time is regret personified.

Smooth-skinned, happy Baby New Year, on the other hand, is our hopes, ambitions, and promises of reform wrapped up in one cherubic package. “This year,” we promise ourselves, “I will write every day without fail,” or “I will push aside all other interests to concentrate on writing,” or the clincher, “I will sell.” And with Baby New Year gurgling in our ears, we believe without question that all those things will happen.

But there’s someone we forgot—Mother Nature. We all have natural preferences that aid our writing process. Sadly, though, we often ignore these preferences when making our New Year’s writing resolutions. We try to become writers that we aren’t. Is it any wonder that so many of our resolutions are irretrievably broken before Valentine’s Day?

If you naturally write in bursts, don’t swear you’ll stick to a hell-or-high-water daily page count. You’re just asking for trouble. Likewise, if you thrive on structure, adopting huge, non-specific goals like “sell a book” won’t help you do it any faster. To ensure success with your resolutions, tailor them to fit who you are as they push you along. You’ll find greater satisfaction and more positive results.

So learn from your past and look forward to your future, but never forget how you’re designed. As the commercial said, “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.”

An earlier version of this post was originally published in Magical Prose, the newsletter of Central Florida Romance Writers.

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Merry Christmas!

For today, a little taste of wonderful, courtesy of Charles Dickens. This is Mr. Man’s favorite Christmas story ever.

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!"

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

"They are not torn down!" cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here -- I am here -- the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be! I know they will."

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

God bless us, every one!

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The Bed List

Dear Santa,

mimi has been very good this year. May I please have one of these in my Christmas stocking?

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Happy Hours

One of the more unfortunate clichés brought on by the chick lit wave was that of the Girls’ Night Out--a raucous group of females pounding down the cosmos or lemon drops until one, or several of them, ended up either hooking up with Mr. Right Now or, more likely, throwing up into a bush, on their expensive shoes, or onto Mr. Right. Or some combination thereof. I can’t say I miss those days or plot moments.

I think what chick lit missed was the whole point of happy hour--to be happy. That’s what Chez mimi is going to do this evening. Mr. Man and I, with Frick and Frack, are heading over to our friends’ house for a true happy hour. There will probably be liquor, but not enough to make anyone throw up, and good food and lots of laughter. And that, my friends, is what happy hour is all about.

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Deck the Halls

Alas, mimi is not one of those women who has the holiday decorating gene. You know, the ones who have color-coded boxes of everything for every season: shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, Easter egg trees and adorable bunnies and chicks, flag bunting for the Fourth, and a veritable witches’ brew of jack o’lanterns, bats, and spiderwebs for Halloween. Nope, mimi considers it a good year if she can find the Christmas tree skirt and both Frick’s and Frack’s stockings without a meltdown. So expecting a Christmas tree to sprout the day after Thanksgiving is a stretch, if not an outright impossibility.

Lucky for mimi, this is where having all that church background comes in handy. Once the tree is up--and it does make it up--Chez mimi keeps it up until Epiphany. January 6th, for those into calendars. Twelfth Night, if you’ve brushed up on your Shakespeare. What else could you imagine for the court jester’s house?

Now if I can only find that special ornament I bought last year...

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