Alyssa Rosenberg: How did your relationship with your mom change when you became a parent and she became a grandma?
Anne Lamott: Everything became much easier now that I was no longer the focus of her gimlet eyes. Sam was her first grandchild and she became very soft.
It’s no longer a question of whether your career is good enough, it’s great that you’ve created a human being who is incredibly easy to love for who he is. She was never a “normal” mother. That was pretty conditional on how we were throughout her school years and later throughout her career. And as soon as I gave her my grandson, everything was forgiven.
I was always sad that I didn’t have a mother who was happy for me as I am. It pains me when I see other women whose mothers were so willing to accept them, support them, and teach them what really matters between women; I could not do it. I think part of it was because she was from Liverpool and she was a Monty Python type character. At home, we didn’t express emotions. If I feel angry or sad at the dinner table, I take the dinner and go to my room. When I had Sam, I was so grateful that our relationship got even better. At the same time, I kind of rolled my eyes and thought, “Well, I guess she’s 35. It’s about time, but I’ll just hang in there.”
It sounds like you had a clear sense of what you wanted your grandparents to be for Sam. Was that something you thought about during your pregnancy?
I had no real grandparents. My mother’s father died in Liverpool when she was a child. My maternal grandmother died of Alzheimer’s disease when I was very young, and my paternal father passed away when I was about 6 years old. My grandfather, my father’s mother, was a very cold Presbyterian. We called them “God’s frozen chosen ones.”
I had never had such an experience and had longed all my life for unconditional love where once removed, failure was not an option and nothing was expected of me. I really wanted to provide that for my son and knew that if he had kids, I would do the same for his kids.
One of the things that I’ve always found very interesting in your work is the relationship between love and control. The grandparent relationship seems like a relationship where the two of them may come into conflict. How did you balance that?
Leaving my grandchild in the care of my very worried parents was the hardest job I’ve ever had to do. They were very young and Sam was an alcoholic and drug user.
I was 55 years old when Jax was born. And that’s when I began to realize that I was powerless on a cellular level. Sam couldn’t come clean of his own volition. I wasn’t going to get my way. That way, Sam could get a college education, establish a career, and then, if he wanted, start a family even at 22.
So when Sam had a baby, I realized that my help was useless. I said earlier that aid is the bright side of control. And that there’s a healthy kind of love that I can offer them, mostly babysitting and paying for things if they’re strapped in, and the best way to raise this baby. I had to learn that my thoughts and ideas about things would result in results I wouldn’t get. To meet the child.
Were there any moments or particular decisions that were particularly difficult to not intervene?
When Jax was about two years old, Sam was arrested with a large amount of drugs in his car. He got a call from the bail bondsman asking to get Sam out of jail and I said no. The bail bondsman said, “You’re the first mother in Marin County to not post bail for your child.” Even if I rescued him, I don’t know if he would still be with us. It didn’t help, I thought, to take away the consequences of someone’s self-destructive behavior. It’s not a gift.
What have you learned about parenting Sam from watching him become a parent? Have you learned anything about parenting from his grandparents?
One day you will realize how many mistakes you made and how often you failed. When Sam was young, I was poor. I didn’t have any money at all until he was about 10 years old. And I also had that drive and ambition and effort. As many children of single parents learn, Sam learned how to entertain himself. I spent a lot of time with him on the floor with Legos, but he dragged himself into bookstores, libraries, and stages.
sam and amy [Jax’s mom, and Sam’s former partner] He made time for Jax no matter what. But they didn’t have a career, so that was something else. They had money from their grandparents to pay rent, buy food, etc. As a grandparent, you realize that what has sustained you is something outside the human realm: the goodness of our friends, the miracle of our community, the things that surround us and sustain us. , we realize that it was an incredible act of goodwill that helped us get back on our feet. At your feet when you fall.
How has your relationship with Jax changed over time?
He was very involved in our home and our lives, and we became very, very close. I was very spoiled and used to having little beings around me who didn’t have harsh opinions of me.
And then he became a teenager. He’s almost 15 years old. About a year and a half ago, everything became about his friend. He’s a very, very kind person, the kindest person I’ve ever known. And yet he secretly taps me on the shoulder and says, Return to the phone. Go back to the internet. ” And I find it shocking that his need for his beloved, adorable Nana is less than it used to be. Next year he will be driving and I will be heartbroken again.
