Dear Neighbor,
It’s May, the month we celebrate mothers. So, let’s talk about Communism.
I was a junior in high school when my history teacher, Mr. Hill, also the head football coach, ran a movie on Communism while he sat at his desk working out plays for the night’s game. I found it fascinating.
That night I dutifully went to the game and sat among friends. Bored, my thoughts turned to Karl Marx, and his key concept of 1875, as per the movie, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” I loved this idea, but felt instantly it could never work.
Why not? Not in society, anyway — too many divergent ideas of what is givable or needed, good or fair. Could it work in a family — a micro-society?
My first, hasty teenager response: No. I had too many friends whose family systems, including my own, did not contain the generosity of Marx’s dictum. But, could there be family systems that did? I continued to wrestle with this question into the very first days of motherhood, and beyond.
Gazing at one-week-old, sleeping Daisy, I marveled, “You’re perfect.” The question I’d felt coming at me from my parents from the first days in the cradle: “Ok, Baby, What do you need to do to be interesting, respected, admired, cherished?,” instantly found its answer: Nothing. (In my mind, of course, I’d always fallen short.) I looked at Daisy and told her, “You exist. You’re good to go. (From each according to his abilities…). You — that’s all I need.”
I don’t know about you, but for me the first year was the easiest, and Marx stayed in the wings. The job description is the same for every new mother: feed, change, bathe, do a ton of laundry, cuddle and coo, read books aloud, take photos, speak lovingly and gaze adoringly. No doubts about how you’re doing: Clarion wails of needs help you stay the course. In a nutshell, be sure Baby is happy.
It’s when the hard-wired personality presents itself and the word “No!” enters the child’s vocabulary that things get complicated, and the heart of Marx’s dictum kicks in.
Mothers are celebrated for giving. We need to celebrate them also for knowing when not to give.
Marx’s dictum — “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” — came into play seriously when Daisy was in sixth grade. After K-5 at Kenwood Elementary School, she attended a charter school in St. Paul that she loved (Latin, virtues, math, all of it). Alas, there was no school bus to transport her — we had to do it.
My husband was an emergency room physician, and his schedule defied chronicity: Enter Dorothy, the truehearted chauffeur.
Mornings and afternoons during rush hour I crept to St. Paul. And back. On a “good” day, each round trip was a mere hour. Many days, though, it ran (crawled) to 90 minutes: three hours total! As Lily was then too young to stay home alone, she had to be hauled along for the afternoon pickup. The phrase “Driving Miss Daisy” took a dark turn.
One afternoon, late in the school year, I experienced for the first — and thank God — last time road rage. A Mustang (of course, it was red!) cut me off on that freeway hellscape near Cedar-Riverside. Until then, I’d curbed my swearing around the girls. Not today. As our three lives flashed before me, I let loose with every swear word I knew and a few invented for the occasion.
The imbalance was too great. It was killing me and messing up our family: I hated driving when I could be working, Lily hated being dragged along, my husband hated that I was a wreck and that dinner was often late and subpar. Ah, but Daisy loved that school.
Karl Marx to the rescue! We had a family meeting and told a devastated Daisy that next year she’d be going to a school nearby (an excellent one, by the way). I explained that no one member of a system can overshadow the needs of others; it’s the job of the family to self-correct and find alternatives that allow everyone to be happy.
In time, Daisy came to understand. She made new friends, thrived academically, and triumphed on the new school’s Nordic ski team.
Our whole family grew as a consequence. Hats off to Marx! No Hallmark card will wish you a Happy Communist Mother’s Day. But I do.
— Dorothy
