Julie Pippert: Using My Words

The clerk told me the total and I flinched. Literally. We'd just finished gathering all the school supplies specified on the list for my oldest daughter, now in an upper grade of elementary. The expectations are much higher. And so is the cost. It's also a lot harder. Her questions are more complex, and her moods more mercurial. Once upon a time I could have gone to the store and bought the supplies for her. Now, however, she has a vested interest in this and all purchases, as well as many aspects of life…because in her mind, they all reflect on her. She sees herself in a new way. She's becoming self-conscious about the music she listens to, the clothes she wears, how she fixes her hair and accessorizes, the way she talks…everything. When did all this happen and what do I do? I swear five minutes ago she was just starting to talk! So, after shopping, I came to Facebook and stated that back to school shopping was a physical pain and added a few melodramatic OUCH c...

In a time of white wicker, macrame, and ferns...when the pointed collars of polyester shirts brushed the tops of short-sleeved sweaters that bloused gracefully over flat fronted jeans with bottoms like bells...and the most popular Halloween costume included fluffy felt skirts with a black poodle applique and bobby sox... Sunday nights were devoted to the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Mystery Hour -- our one television program we got each day -- but Saturday mornings, those were reserved for Casey Kasem. His smooth, familiar voice announced the country's most popular songs each week, and I listened patiently through the countdown, measuring my favorites against what my fellow countrymen preferred. I adored the inside scoop about the rock stars, such as the story about the guitarist from Jefferson Starship who loved to skateboard. I thought of my own blue board, and felt a kinship. I also felt a kinship to listeners around the nation, as Casey sang out their radio station's call numb...

Last night I told my daughters, "You should be ashamed of yourselves." I know modern parenting has it that we should never let our kids feel badly, especially about themselves, but the truth was...by our family's morals and ethics my kids should have felt badly about what they did and about themselves. We had just returned home from a short four-day holiday visiting my mother. A couple of those days I was at the South by Southwest Conference, and to cover my absence -- which nobody seemed to notice much, a good thing -- the family went on the Fun Run: lake, picnic, boating, kite flying, park, and more. It was days of outdoors and good times, which the kids loved. After an easy and speedy drive, we arrived home shortly before dinner, and that's when the kids launched into bickering and insults that escalated into vicious behavior. My husband and I both tried several times to redirect, direct, intervene, and every other parenting measure in our arsenal, to no avail. I t...

As my husband and I ponder the best place and path for our oldest daughter... our beautiful precious Angel, who feels so deeply and intensely, thinks so logically, and who is, apparently, not on the same track as her peers, completely, for intelligence or emotional development, and who is, allegedly, according to educators, just enough ahead to make it slightly challenging and uncomfortable As we ponder her amazing empathy remarkable insight deeply embedded and held intellectual curiosity inspiring self-motivated learning and accomplishing I asked her, off-handedly, for a real reason but no real reason what she thought of the kids in the grade ahead. The only one I really know, Mom, she told me, was really really rude, like mean. How's that I asked? Heart pounding in my chest, recognizing that here we go again I think In the bathroom, my beautiful precious Angel said, In the bathroom this girl told me that she hated me. Hated me echoed around the deep cavern in my chest created to ...

A while ago, I enthusiastically volunteered for a political candidate. I phone banked, sent letters and emails, wrote letters to the editor. . .tasks like that. Tasks I could juggle in to my life, all things considered. In my case, all things considered meant juggling my work and family life with my volunteering – and the campaign wasn’t my only pro bono cause. Work takes most of my day. My kids are very capable but still not truly independent. I have the day while they are at school, but evenings and weekends – when most volunteer events of any type I deal with, especially political, occur – I am flat out. There are kid sports, family events, house chores, family time, birthday parties and so forth every weekend. Evenings are chock full of homework, dinner, and bedtime. This is the same sort of life nearly any parent with school-aged kids leads. In addition to my own interests – such as political or health causes – there are also my family interests – such as school events, PTO,...

I, as you may have gathered, like to use my words. I try (like hades) to use them wisely and for good. But I am a woman of opinion, prejudice, judgment, and some immaturity as we all are and so sometimes my mouth, it does run away. Less these days than in the past, I hope. Although I do seem to talk a lot, still. However, recently I've been learning how very much I say about the things that often matter little to me. I have always kept up an artful show, a stream of lies and excuses -- a habit, a defense I developed long ago to protect myself, which, in turn, protected others around me too, for better or worse. One time, in middle school, I pretended I didn't know how to clean anything. More specifically, I pretended I didn't know how to sweep. This from the girl who'd been sweeping and mopping for years, among many, many other responsibilities. I'm all for chores, but there's a distinction between responsibility and burdening. But at camp that summer, I wanted ...

We humans have perfected the art of dehumanizing people for our own ends. We modern people have perfected the art of rationalizing this, even to the point that we believe it is Good and/or Deserved. Reality TV doesn't help, but, perhaps ironically, I think blogging does. In snippet situations--which abound in all areas of media and life these days, from text messages, to brief interactions, from hectic schedules to ideology condensed to a talking point--we can find our brief summaries of others reinforced. Blogs and other lengthier more personal interactions force us to pause and reconsider...if we let ourselves. It's so simple to sum up another person: she's organized, he's loud, she's a christian, he's a liberal, she's scary smart, he's so nice... We often even think of these things as compliments. But are they? Or are they oversimplified labels that in some way dehumanize the other person? Have we snapped people we know into lock boxes, never to be ta...

It's a jungle out there, which requires skilled juggling and a bag of tricks, too. When Grease! (the movie) came out, my friends and I went Grease-crazy. Everyone bought the album, and we poured over the foldout album cover's yearbook style collection of photos. We tried to decide which T-Birds were cute versus too greaser, and which photo of Danny and Sandy was best. Meanwhile, the vinyl record played on the record player in the background, repeating the songs until they were burned into my brain for thirty years (and probably beyond). For my birthday, I had a fifties themed party that year. All the kids came in rolled up jeans and tee-shirt or puffy poodle skirts. I have the photos still, and there we are dancing, singing, and mugging in a big group for the camera. It's amazing how period-perfect we looked. It's amazing how carefree and happy we were. When I look at the photos, I remember other things beyond the giant amount of fun we had at my party, beyond how thri...

I've been subtly correcting my children lately. Persistence has anger management issues, which I realize is the definition of a four year old, but directing that from anti-social to acceptable communication is the definition of mother. "Stomp your foot, say I feel angry! That's okay! It's not okay to hit or say hurtful things!" If I had a dollar for every time I said that the private school tuition would be paid for. We used to say mad. But the phrase "I'm mad" began to get under my connotation, denotation, and grammatically OCD skin. I did not like picturing Ophelia. I did not like being put in mind of a mad bull, someone enraged; greatly provoked or irritated; angry; abnormally furious; ferocious; extremely foolish or unwise; imprudent; irrational. Although upon reflection, perhaps mad is the right word, after all. But we've stuck with anger. Angry sounds like something you can get under control. Mad, enraged, fury does not. Betty Draper is wa...

The other day I was looking at this gorgeous house. It was my ideal sort of house: sort of large and rambly, older but fully restored with the same character and time period architecture, a flowy floor plan but with a fair amount of openness, and lovely furnishings...just nice enough to be nice but not at all out of a catalog or showroom. Homey. Classy. Clean. Lovely. All of the sudden, with a hitch to my stomach, I thought, "I am just never, ever going to have a house like this." For a second, I mourned. I am never going to have a house like that because my husband is an architect and I am a writer, and we will likely never make That Amount of Money necessary. I am never going to have a house like that because my husband is an architect in the same way a doctor is a doctor and a plumber is a plumber: they do grand work for everyone except themselves. I am never going to have a house like that because I am Decoration and Flair challenged. I even once took a couple of courses ...

They are cute, these kittehs, but I now see that they are all a part of God's plan, my cross to bear, as it were. As I revealed in my post about how I know I am Chilean , I believe in the fair and equal balance of good and bad, which I hope/believe I can control through the Art of Self-Imposed Minor Suffering. If I have too good of a day or too much good comes, I'll spend the next day atoning, trying to bring my minor suffering back in line enough to mitigate any additional instances of major suffering. I'll drink my water without ice, and no flavoring of tea. I'll skip eye liner. I'll eat a Weight Watchers frozen meal instead of getting that Schlotzky's sandwich I want. I'll watch Duck Dodgers with the kids. As soon as good news came down the pipe, I know the bad will, too. I consider myself lucky because the universe likes me balanced in the middle, and I know it could be much worse on the other end. I could, for example, be the police officer who lost a h...

She gets angry, oh so angry. She is kicking the table legs, throwing sand on the playground, staring you in the eye as she defies directions. She swishes her head away and up in the air, with a big "Humph!" and crossing of her arms to add an exclamation point to the end of a sentence that is already exclamatory enough. Her tone starts at whiny and ends at petulant. Her joy is the exception now, rather than the rule. For some reason, her world infuriates her, all the time. Calm is a fighting word. Even when she is laughing or happy, it is more of a defiantly triumphant pleasure than pure joy. The people around her who care are perplexed, and out of patience. There is always something , and it is always making her oh-so-unhappy. We think if only we knew what it was, we could fix it. But what we do know is love, and this we give freely, sometimes with patience, sometimes with impatience. But if we offer it, love and calm, like stroking a frightened upset animal, it will eventu...

Hi. I'm speaking from the position of a person with two kids. Not babies, kids. And trust me, that makes a difference. While they still need us on a daily basis in many ways, our kids don't need us on a minute basis. In general, that means things such as if a kid is thirsty, I can say, "Hey you know where the cups and water are..." if a kid is hungry, I can say, "Hey, grab a cheese stick or apple." if a kid wakes up before sunrise on a Saturday I can say, "Hey, go play in the playroom." if a kid is bored I can say, "Hey, go knock next door and see if your friend can play." Do you see a theme? I have more space, more choice. My kids are fairly independent, and I can baby them, or not. But they do still need me, and parent is still my number one job. Recently, there has been some hoopla about a couple of articles that were semi to very critical about breastfeeding and its antifeminist yoke. I've read several bloggy responses, comments t...