I read a comic strip the other day that made me think about my books. It was the long Sunday version of “For Better or For Worse”. A young boy, around six years old, was misbehaving. Finally, the mother had had enough and sent him to bed. As she stormed out of his bedroom the boy asked for a goodnight kiss. She replied that when he behaved this way, she didn’t feel like kissing him. He said, almost in tears “But Mom, that’s when I need it most!”
I know I get frustrated at both my 13-year-old and my 4-year-old children. I know that I say things and react in ways that I am later, if not instantly, sorry for. And most, if not all, parents go through this. Otherwise, books like “Go the F**k to Sleep” by Adam Mansbach wouldn’t be so popular. Sometimes we need that childish point of view to remind us what our hectic life makes us forget.
My 13-year-old son has teenage-itis in a big way. If he makes himself a sandwich, he forgets to put away the bread and turkey. When I ask him to clean up the back yard so I can mow it, he procrastinates for an hour or so then asks “What do I have to pick up?” He complains for several days that he has no jeans, although he knows that he has the responsibility to wash his own clothes. His dishes often end up in the sink instead of the dishwasher. I get upset, I get angry, I yell too much and too loudly.
And I sometimes forget to follow the proper good night routines.
I wrote “Why Am I Me?” because when he was younger he had that tentative personality that the book addresses. It was written for him and other kids like him, to point out to them that they ARE important and have a purpose, even if it is hard to see sometimes.
I am working on a new children’s book, “The Heart Happy Bubble.” It gives children a tool to help them not take on the attitudes and bad behaviors of those around them. Sympathize with them, understand that when another child is mean to you, it is almost never aimed at you, but at someone else and you’re just in the line of fire. But don’t empathize so much that you take on those same feelings as your own.
You know how writing a book is: it never seems to go as quickly as you expect it to. And then you have to convince a publisher to take it on. But, as trite as it seems, writing this book is its own reward. I get to tell the story to both of my kids, and just the act of writing it makes me more aware of all the emotional jerks that children have to endure.
Maybe teenagers most of all.
