Dishes

I’ve never been the woman that ropes off her living room unless company is coming over, and I don’t really have things that I save for special occasions, but I do have a number of lovely things that aren’t particularly practical for everyday use. Some were wedding gifts, others were inherited from family members, and others I’ve picked up myself over the years. Mostly they live in the china hutch, but when I host a gathering, I love pulling them out and showing them off.

My oldest niece is getting married in a few months, and her sister Sarah and I hosted a bridal shower for her. I had great fun trolling Pinterest for décor and menu ideas, and I enjoyed cooking and decorating in preparation. Cleaning…well, less fun, but important. My house is never as clean as I’d like, but I’ve accepted that, and I know that being a good hostess is not as much about a spotless home as it is about an open door.

The morning of the bridal shower, I cover the table with an embroidered tablecloth that had belonged to my stepmother; in fact, I think it had originally belonged to her mother-in-law. I spread a second embroidered tablecloth—a treasure purchased for $2 at an estate sale—over the kitchen island where I will set up the dessert station. I often pick up handwork at second-hand sales, because I want to honor and respect the work of the women who created it. The textile arts, in my opinion, tend to be undervalued.

Once the backdrop is in place, I retrieve tiny white china cups and saucers—a wedding gift from a childhood neighbor—from the bottom of the hutch. My neighbor was an avid garage sale shopper, and I am sure that these cups were not new when she gave them to me, which, frankly, I think is awesome. Recycling rocks!

I take out another wedding gift: an enormous glass bowl, a present from the kids in the 9^th-grade Sunday school we taught before we wed. I love this bowl and use it often. When I do, I always remember those sassy, introspective, amazing kids. We lost touch with them, but I know a few things: two of the girls were pregnant before they graduated high school (*sigh*), one of the boys was killed in a car accident when he was 26, and the father of one of the girls died just a few months ago. Much has happened since we knew them, but the beauty of the glass bowl remains.

To serve the chocolate mousse, I pull out my own Crate-and-Barrel dessert dishes, plus a few antique dessert dishes of unknown origin and a few pieces of my mother’s stemware. I’m sure that at one time I would have found the mish-mash of dishes tacky, but now I love it. Matchy-matchy is so 20^th-century.

There are not enough forks in my every-day silver, so I pull out the forks that were my family’s “good” silverware when I was a kid. I’ll also need three stainless serving plates to hold the quiches and my grandmother’s floral bon-bon dish for the butter. We plate and arrange everything: the tables look beautiful.

Our guests arrive—a mix of women new to me and people I’ve known for decades. The room is full of laughter and happiness, getting to know each other and celebrating Beka and the new family that is being formed with her marriage. 

At this shower, also I see and hear and feel the presence of women long gone, women I have loved and women I have not met. I see their artistry in the beautiful tablecloths that have served, and continue to serve, as a backdrop to lovingly created meals. I hear the echoes of their conversations as we sip from the same porcelain coffee cups. I see the reflection of their lives in the metals and the crystal. 

These days, when most women work for their own fulfillment as well as for financial reasons, when men cook and clean and tend to children, these gatherings might seem a throwback to another time: a hen party, a relic from the days when a well-stocked kitchen was the epitome of what every woman wanted. But I see it more as a rite of passage: women supporting women, helping to launch a young bride’s new life, offering our advice and our blessings to the bride-to-be as she enters an exciting new chapter.

When women gather, there is power. Sometimes this power changes the world through advocacy, education, research, or new ideas. And sometimes it changes the world in quieter ways, empowering just one woman and surrounding her with love as she moves confidently into her future. Godspeed, Beka, and know that you’re supported by those who walked this path before you. 

Reading

When I talk to parents who, like us, have large gaps in the ages of their children, they will often say that they are much better parents later in life. They have learned to let “little things” slide and they focus more on enjoying their kids than correcting them.

I can honestly say that I don’t feel that I have changed that much. I am just as bad at parenting as I have always been. I still get grumpy over lost items and spilled drinks, and I still get mad when I have to repeat simple instructions 20 times. We don’t indulge the kids’ every request or sign them up for everything they want to do; we ask them to make choices. When they pair green sweatpants with a red shirt or commit some other fashion faux pas, I will send my kids upstairs to change, although I have always been fairly relaxed about hair, allowing them to choose their own styles and colors (and trying really, really hard not making snide comments). But I still insist the kids eat their veggies, do their chores, and go to bed at a decent time.

I do notice, however, that I don’t worry quite as much about the younger kids’ academics. I help when I can, nag when I must, but I don’t feel the need to push them to be the top of their class. One thing I have learned is that motivation must come from within, and pushing too hard only leads to frustration for me and passive aggressive behavior in them.

I used to try so hard to get the older kids work up to their potential. All of them, smart and talented but not particularly driven, were happy to get by with the least amount of work, so from time to time we would work on an incentive program. When Beanie Babies were popular, I promised my oldest son, Phillip, a new stuffed animal with each perfect score on a spelling test, and for months his tests were flawless. When I told him that I thought he should get two perfect tests in order to get a toy, he decided that was too much work, and he never studied for a spelling test again.

I do believe in education, and I do want my kids to give things their best effort. I want them to understand math and be scientifically literate. I want them to LOVE reading and to be able to put together clear sentences in written form.  But with spellcheck available everywhere, it hardly seems important to be a perfect speller. By all means, I want the kids to learn the difference between there, their, and they’re, but most of the other stuff—eh, not so important.

More than brilliance in the classroom, my wish for my kids is that they learn to be kindhearted and empathetic without being used and abused, that they can understand the give-and-take required of any good relationship. I want them to learn to be good friends, and this is far more difficult to teach this than any academic subject.

Over the years each of my kids has had good friends and not-so-good friends. I know that my kids didn’t, and still don’t, tell me about every time they were bullied or bruised. I also know that, although they are basically lovely people, my kids have been guilty of acts of unkindness—some of it stunningly cruel. It’s what kids do: speak without thinking, act without considering someone else’s feelings. Sometimes it has cost them big, but other times they have been able to make amends. At the very least they have learned from the experience.

Back in the days when I was pressuring Phillip about I before E and all other things academic, he hung out with a kid named Greg. They were friends through high school, but they didn’t see each other much after that, even though they made some attempts to keep in touch. It wasn’t a falling out, just a falling away, as happens when paths diverge.

Enough of their friendship remained that Phillip went to the visitation hours when, at age 21, Greg took his own life. Even looking back at their time together, Phillip did not suspect that Greg would suicide. I don’t know if Greg changed after high school or if Phillip just didn’t see it. I certainly don’t blame Phillip for missing it. Greg had a loving family and several close friends; I don’t know if any of them saw it, either. But I wish someone had, and had found a way to stop it.

I want my kids to read great literature, to understand math, and to know important events from history, but more than that I want them to be able to read people, to understand relationships, and to know themselves. Not that the two are mutually exclusive; it’s certainly possible to be self-aware and a good friend and also to be intellectually well-rounded. But if I have to choose, I want to raise kids who are good friends, who have healthy relationships, and who make a positive difference in the lives of others.

I’ll go to parent/teacher conferences this week, and if history is any indication, I expect that the teachers will tell me that my kids are doing okay academically: strengths and weaknesses, but mostly middle of the pack. And then they’ll tell me that my kids are helpful and kind, sweet and funny, growing up to be good people. After the conferences I’ll attempt—as I always do—to offer more help (and nag a little more) with schoolwork. But in my heart I’ll know that the important foundation is already secure.