Lisa Valentine Clark - Real Moms: Making It Up As We Go

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clark, Lisa Valentine, author.

Real moms : making it up as we go / Lisa Valentine Clark.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-60907-996-3 (paperbound)

1. MotherhoodReligious aspectsChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I. Title.

BX8643.W66C53 2015

248.8'431dc232014045052

Printed in the United States of America

Edwards Brothers Malloy, Ann Arbor, MI

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Topher,

Miles, Owen, Phoebe, Hugh, and Margaret

Introduction

Or, Every mom should write a book on motherhood, and every mom could

Or, Im not mysterious, but I always have lipstick

I have long held a desire to be considered a mysterious woman. I have fantasized about living a glamorous life in which I am poised, graceful, and well fashioned. A life in which people around me would wonder what I thought about ideas, politics, or art behind my big, dark sunglasses and simple couture dress. No one would really know, however, because I would be so mysterious. I would speak softly and intelligently in short, cryptic sentences that would be worthy to be mass-produced in large type and printed on canvas for display. Like Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly, I would never be without lipstick. I would never speak an unkind or misplaced word or have an emotional outburst. I would be mysterious.

I have, over the course of my life so far, become pretty much the opposite of that desire except for the lipstick part. I always have lipstick.

My husband, Topher, and I have a little game that we have been playing for years that just never seems to get old. Whenever were watching a movie, we always identify the role that we think we would audition for or get cast as. Its funny to us because we never cast ourselves as the lead character. Im not even the Wacky Best Friend (I wish!); its more like Cashier #2, who, we imagine, was just an extra who got pulled on set that day for a line, and Im really excited about it because now I get paid for a speaking role. (My line is something like, Will that be all? or Come again! and Im really stoked about it and Ive called all my family and told them Im in a movie!) Or maybe Im the lady with the big glasses who yells, He went that way! as the protagonist of the film races by. (Topher will lean over to me and say, You said your line really well, and Ill nod knowingly, as we both correctly identified the same character.) He and I can always spot our minor roles. Were middle-aged character actors. We know who we are.

We continue this same line of thinking with a game my clever book club friends play very well. Someone will say a funny or definitive statement about somethinganything, reallythat happened to them or that theyve said, and then well attach their name to the end as the title of their memoir. Like this: Ill mention that my son has a limited palate and we dont know how he thrives, and Topher will say, Crackers and Cheerios: The Hugh Valentine Clark Story. Or well tease our friend Patrick about his super trendy outfit, and then when he gushes over the food, fellow clever book clubber Josh might say something like, Hipster Ts and Melty Cheese: The Patrick Livingston Story. Then we might imagine what our Lifetime Movie of the Week would look like. So, in that game tradition, I have jokingly referred to this book, written by Cashier #2 in the movie about motherhood, as Since Nobody Asked: The Lisa Valentine Clark Story.

Every mom should write a book on motherhood, and every mom could. We all have those special moments when the ridiculous happens and we look around wondering, Why arent there cameras recording all of this? We all find ourselves in situations no one could prepare us foror, if they tried, we wouldnt have believed such things could happen to us. Like a classic sitcom moment playing out in front of us (minus the craft services and fancy dressing room) that no one is paying us to see.

You could write this book, and I hope you do because we need to share our experiences. There is value in having someone laugh at something that happened to you because there were, in fact, no cameras recording it. Our live studio audience wasnt there because that audience is the other moms, and we were all too busy running our own showsso youre going to have to tell us about it. We need each others stories. They help us laugh at ourselves, our kids, and our situations; they remind us to take a breath and move on to the next scene.

Motherhood is where were hedging our bets. Weve put our time into those things. Were in too deep to turn back now. All our eggs are in this basket. Weve put in our 10,000 hours AND THEN SOME (thank you, Malcolm Gladwell) to be considered experts in our field. I walked away from a high school teaching career just as it started off to stay home with my first child, and Ive worked on and off from home and sometimes out of the home in different fields. But no matter what I have and havent done, Ive identified myself as a Mormony Mom who does some other stuff sometimes. Its over for me. Whatever I do from here on out is secondary to what Ive been doing for almost sixteen years, and I suspect youre the same, no matter what your background or working status is. Whether you are a mom of little kids, older kids, or grown-up kids, a stepmom, a single mom, a married mom, it doesnt matter. This motherhood role has a way of swallowing up encompassing all the other areas of our lives. But the good news is that were all in this together.

We talk about motherhood like its a singular thing, but its not. Some mothers have spouses, some dont; some have a great support system, and some operate under more isolated circumstances. Throughout this book I didnt separate my experience from my connections, and you cant either.

I got married at a young age, and it could have gone horribly wrong. Ive read the statistics. We were both young and in love, and we didnt know how young we were, or we did and we just didnt care. Now its nineteen years later, and its still the best decision I ever made because instead of waiting until I got older, I got to be with him for that much longer.

Our story is the typical BYU-Boy-Meets-Girl story youve heard a million times: We were both in a really special English Society play called Mysteries: The Creation, about stories from the Old Testament, and he was cast as Satan and I was cast as a chicken. And Satan and the chicken fall in love after being friends for a year. Blah, blah, blah, tale as old as time!

I cant really separate my experience as a mother from my experience as a wife because my perspectives with each are all tangled up. Ive now known Topher as long as Ive not known him (and most of those early years when I didnt know him, I was a dumb baby and little kid, so they dont count). Weve changed each other and were a real partnership. It might be obnoxious to read, but it doesnt mean its not true. We tell each other everything and weve been there through real life together: getting jobs, losing jobs, moving, living in England and Provo and Orem, being pregnant, giving birth, raising kids, changing careers, slogging through graduate school and more graduate school, directing plays, teaching kids to read and have table manners, and a million other big and little things. Being a parent is hard and its wonderful, and Ive always had a partner through it all, which has made it better. Its made it all the best, actually.