The Mom Crowd

I recently discovered the brilliance that is Friday Night Lights on dvd, thanks to my local library. Maybe some of you have seen it. It’s a series based on the movie (which was based on a book, which was based on real-life events). I’m not a football fan, but I don’t have to be to enjoy this show. It’s a superior drama with compelling stories and dynamite acting. It tackles great themes (no pun intended!) and is gritty in its realistic storytelling style.

(For the uninitiated: FNL is centered on the Taylor family, recently relocated to the small – and fictional – town of Dillon, Texas, where dad Eric is given the immense challenge of coaching the elite high school football team. Eric and his wife Tami have a daughter, Julie, who is a sophomore at the high school. And Tami becomes the school’s guidance counselor. The close-knit family discovers that for the people of Dillon, life consists of little else than winning football games. Pressure ensues. Relationships are tested. The family learns to survive in the small-town public’s eye.)

Season one was great. I can’t wait to see season two when it arrives on dvd (April 22!). And I just learned that the show (whose ratings have always been fledgling and whose survival has always seemed doubtful) will be coming back this fall! In honor of its renewal, I thought I’d write about one of the highlights: Connie Britton as Tami Taylor.

Britton is a phenomenal actress. She portrays the varying emotions of devotion, exasperation, wisdom, confusion, and pride with ease, sometimes all in the same scene. As Tami juggles the pressures of the town, the fullness of her husband’s workload, and the angst of her teenage daughter, not to mention her own career (she counsels the same students her husband coaches on the field, creating interesting ethical dilemmas for Eric & Tami), her strength of character shines brightly. She looks after struggling students with maternal wisdom, encouraging them to achieve everything they can for their futures. She gives her husband insight into the emotional lives of the players and puts up with prying townspeople. She handles the pressure of being married to the head coach with grace. And she always looks fabulous. Seriously, she has the best hair and sense of style I’ve ever seen for a t.v. mom (Rachel Green doesn’t count).

The scene I recall most vividly is one wherein Tami confronts her daughter about her plans to have sex with her boyfriend. It’s pretty powerful. I’m not sure I’d say everything to my child in the exact same way or with the exact same words – thank goodness that’s a conversation many, many, MANY! years away with my own daughter – but it’s a compelling slice of t.v. motherhood nonetheless.  And Julie ultimately opts out of getting intimate with her boyfriend, as a direct result of this confrontation with her mother. Julie trusted what her mother had to say over her own raging hormones.

Season two is all about Tami having a second child – a surprise, of course – and how the family adjusts to that addition. I can’t wait to see how she handles everything!

Have you seen Friday Night Lights? What makes a realistic t.v. mom? And who are some of your favorites?

Warm weather is nearly here (that is, some of us are in the throes of heat waves already, others are enjoying the sunny spring they’re accustomed to, and still more of you are sitting inside with snow in your yard, so work with me here!), and that means it’s time for a good beach read.  I love to curl up with Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood  by Rebecca Wells. It’s not exactly on the “new arrivals” shelf at your local Barnes & Noble, but its mother-daughter relationship is worth discussing. I have read it about three times, and I always enjoy its rich storytelling, humor, poignance, and descriptions of old-time, down-home Louisiana living. Even as I type this post, I feel myself starting to think in the Southern accent and manner of speaking that these books so vividly allude to. So grab a glass of tea, dahlin, and read on, if you dare.

The book (and its two companions, Little Altars Everywhere and Ya-Yas in Bloom) is full of fabulous characters and lots of soapy intrigue, but its main storyline centers around the relationship between Viviane Joan Abbott Walker and her oldest daughter, Siddalee. And my word, is it dysfunctional.

Sidda’s the classic “oldest child” – a responsible, perfectionistic worrywart. As a child, she looked after her siblings while her dad went out hunting, her mother drank, and they both argued.  She grew up believing she was responsible for her mother’s unhappiness with life.  In her adulthood, she spends thousands of dollars on therapy and writes plays about her childhood as a form of catharsis. And she messes up royally by sharing with an interviewer too many juicy tidbits about her past. Vivi reads the article, shocked and humiliated, and promises to disown her firstborn immediately. Thus begins our tale, told in a series of revealing, sometimes painful, sometimes beautiful flashbacks. As the two begrudgingly work towards repairing their broken relationship, Sidda learns more about her mother than she ever dreamed when Vivi’s lifelong friends (the “Ya-Yas”) share their special book of secrets and dreams (hence the novel’s title).

Vivi Abbott Walker is one of the most interesting mom characters I’ve ever read:

She’s fabulously charismatic.  Vivi sure knows how to have fun!  From an early age, she demonstrates a knack for doing things with flair, whether it be dressing up to the nines for the premiere of Gone With the Wind as a little girl, putting on fabulous parties, wearing the latest fashions, or responding to anyone with a perfectly witty comment.  Her friends are unflinchingly loyal to her, her kids can’t resist her, and as a reader, I find myself wanting to know more about her.

She’s irrevocably flawed.  Despite her charms, Vivi has a boatload of issues.  After growing up with a mother who hated her, she was confused about her self-worth, wondering if she was an inherently bad person.  Her Catholic faith offered her either condemnation or comfort, depending on the issue she was facing.  She often found herself in the middle of public speculation, the favorite subject of unforgiving rumors.  Her first (and true) love died in the war, and she more or less “settled for” Sidda’s father.  Her drinking problem created more issues for the family.  While she loved her kids, she wondered (oftentimes aloud, in front of the kids) why she couldn’t do more with her life.  At times, she painfully took out her anger on the kids.  After reading her story numerous times, I find myself perplexed and saddened by her many internal struggles and their lasting effects on the children.

After learning all about her mother’s troubled childhood, it fills in the blanks for Sidda, giving her a richer context for why her mother behaves the way she does (and why Sidda was sometimes on the receiving end of Vivi’s anger: she was simply there.)  When Sidda learns to combine her mother’s attractive, wonderful attributes with the knowledge that Vivi’s just another frail human being, struggling to get by, Sidda realizes that it’s awfully hard to hold a grudge against someone so beautiful and imperfect.  Someone who loves Siddalee greatly.

I find it fitting that the author quotes Henri Nouwen in the opening pages: “The hard truth is that all of us love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour – unceasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”

Sidda realizes that her mother, as imperfect as she is, needs grace and understanding, just as much as she does. Just as much as all of us do.  It is our “great work of love” in each of our families: to forgive and be forgiven every day.

Have you read this book? Did you see the movie?  What were your impressions about the mother-daughter relationship it focuses on? Do you have other mommy-issue titles worth recommending? Do share, and have a great weekend, from one imperfect momma to another!

(*Note: There may be spoilers in this post.  Read at your own risk!) 

Now that I’m a mom, I notice things that I didn’t notice before.  (No, I’m not talking about stretch marks.  Ha!)  I’m referring to a heightened sensitivity – a more emotional response – to things I see in tv shows and movies.   Take The Karate Kid, for example.  One of my favorites growing up.  Saw it in the theater; watched it all the time.  Thought Ralph Macchio was adorable.  Never cried.  Well, I received it as a Christmas gift this past year, and let me tell you, I was a mess by the end!  All throughout I was noticing things about Danny LaRusso that I had never paid attention to before: his good manners, his sweetness and vulnerability, his work ethic.  His dad wasn’t in the picture, which I’m sure was a struggle for him (of course, he found a father figure in the wise Mr. Miyagi.)  I’m convinced I see him differently now because I am a mom.  No longer do I see him as a Teen Beat heartthrob; no, now he’s just a sweet boy trying to figure out where he fits in.  And I was so proud of him at the end, at the big tournament, when he shouts, “Mr. Miyagi, we did it! We did it!”  It’s kinda random, I know, but I get all emotional just thinking about it. 

There are other film scenes that wreck me now, too.  Have any of you seen August Rush?  I caught it in the theater a few months ago on a moms’ night out.  Little Freddie Highmore (who’s already 16, yikes!) plays an orphaned boy named August, and he’s absolutely convinced that he’ll find his parents in New York City.  I don’t want to give too much away, in case you go out and rent it tonight, which I totally recommend you do (it’s now on dvd!)  But I will say this, without ruining anything for ya:  there is a scene mid-movie where August does, in fact, meet his dad, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.  Neither of them knows that they’re related, but they clearly have a connection with one another, a shared interest that brings them together by chance.  And it’s heartrending, that scene.  I could barely keep my sobs silent.  The whole movie pretty much tore me up, in fact.   And I mean that in a good way.  It’s a must-watch for all moms, in my opinion.  Just have your hanky ready.

What about you, dear readers?  Like me, do you get misty at the final scene of Walk the Line (the one involving Johnny Cash’s father)?  Does your heart just melt when you meet Jude Law’s daughters in The Holiday?  What other scenes, movies, or shows have triggered an emotional, it’s-because-I’m-a-mommy-now response in you?  Happy weekend, and if you do rent August Rush, be sure to come back and tell us your thoughts! 

Many times my ten month old crawls over to me while I am busy emailing and checking updates online. I pick her up on my lap and together we enjoy watching YouTube videos. Ace jumps up and down on my lap and talks back to the monitor while we watch. We tend to watch the same videos each time, so I researched YouTube and found a few more videos that we can watch together.

Below I list 36 videos that are kid-safe and won’t annoy you. The videos are divided into seven sections: Pop Stars and Kid Shows, Classics, YouTube Classics, Geography Songs, Laurie Berkner Band, Nickelodeon, Tiny Toons, and Ralph’s world. To view the videos click on the photo of the video. So grab your little one and enjoy!

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When I wrote about moms in movies a few months ago, I received a couple of comments about Helen Parr, a.k.a. Elastigirl, from The Incredibles. I hadn’t seen this excellent animated flick since it originally came out in 2004, so I had to do some “research” and re-watch it. (It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it, y’all.)

My friend said:

On my list goes Elastigirl from the Incredibles. Similar thing, she has to remain a great mom while her husband suffers a bit of a nutty, but in the end she shows her strength and brings the family together.

Yes, I agree. Helen Parr (voiced by the brilliant Holly Hunter) is a remarkable mom. As I watched the movie through my couture “mom lenses” (designed by Edna ‘E’ Mode), I noticed her special blend of levelheadedness, responsibility, and feistiness (not to mention her ability to stretch into any shape).

In the first half of the film, she’s seen running the gamut of mom responsibilities: picking up her son from school after he’d been sent to the office, feeding her baby (“making the weird faces” to entertain him, no less), doing laundry, vacuuming, making her family endure leftover night. When the kids argue, she’s right there, peppering their conversations with random insights that sound like they came straight from a psychology book (“Do not shout at the table!” “Oh, don’t just stand there, Bob, I need you to… intervene!” “I don’t think you’re striking the proper tone here!”) She appears to keep the house running smoothly without griping about it, and she shows unfailing support to her husband, no matter what he might be up to. And she doesn’t hesitate to put him in his place if the situation warrants it.

Helen’s biggest scenes involve her children. And that’s when we see her cool-as-a-cucumber personality and physical elasticity come in handy the most. First of all, she flies a plane! Out of nowhere, this momma starts barking out commands like “Mayday, mayday, India-Golf-Niner-Niner is buddy spiked!” Say-wha? That is one piloting-savvy momma! “Abort, abort, there are children aboard, say again, there are children aboard this plane!” Aw, and always looking out for her kids above all else.

Through a series of near-misses and dangerous situations, Helen & her kids learn to trust and appreciate one another’s abilities. In a free-fall from the aforementioned plane, her freaked-out kids find rescue in a lifesaving parachute, provided by mom. Shortly after that, she turns into a raft (handily powered by son Dash’s quick legs). In between, she keeps her cool and helps Dash and Violet do the same, saying things like, “I expect you to trust me.” “Be strong. I’m proud of you.” In addition to being incredibly quick on her feet, she’s both encouraging and wise.

She is also comforting and truthful. Her truthfulness really shines out in the scene where she leaves the kids alone in the jungle in order to search for Bob. Before going, she gives them a speech on the dangers they face, and what to do about them if necessary. She doesn’t sugarcoat their situation – she respects them enough to tell them the truth. And they listen.

By the climax, the whole Parr family is working together, using their powers for good. They share the load. They cheer one another on. And they couldn’t do any of it without Helen, who kept a level head throughout the entire adventure (and who literally carried them all home). Plus, she’s great with directions.

Finally, I chuckled at a little scene that only us moms could really appreciate: in her super-suit, she catches her reflection, stops, and sighs. Let’s just put it this way: the animators gave her a relatively realistic “mom figure”.

So remember, moms, no matter what size we are, no matter how elastic or talented we may be (hey, I’m no pilot on the side, how about you?), our kids will always love us if we show the admirable maternal characteristics displayed by Helen Parr in The Incredibles. What do you think? Happy weekend!