Work versus my work

Freelance writing means balancing paid work with creative work that I hope will eventually pay. It ain't easy. These days I don't have time to write nearly as much as I would like, but I've begun editing THE THIRD MAN, so that's a good thing. From the manuscript:

Lennon wasn’t as verbal as some other kids. It worried her sometimes. There’s that part of parenthood you rarely hear about: the competitive niggling, the jockeying. You read all the cute shit your friends’ kids say and then your kid can’t even pronounce piano. You don’t want to feel like you need to be up against that wall. You don’t want to compare. It comes from a place that vaguely shames you, something you don’t want to acknowledge, but that controls part of your heart all the same.

Where does that come from, the competitiveness? She studied anthropology in college, all those explorations of bones and dust, of instincts and nature. Never once did any of her Indiana Jones professors address the parental desire for their kids to be smarter, funnier, more articulate, and most quickly potty-trained of their group. You’d think they would, right? It seems ripe material. But how do you explain that to a group of 19-year-olds whose fertility was not of paramount concern? No one she knew in school thought they wanted a baby. Maybe the professors knew that. Maybe they were tailoring their lectures to that narrow band that is the middle ground between teen and adult, that time known as the college years. Maybe they understood the very little you can actually grok at that point in time, how minimally you embrace the future when the present is just so … present.

Mom?

Lennon freaked out when she went into her own head. Ironic because that’s where he seemed to live, but perhaps that was the precise reason he didn’t like it. Even at his age he already understood that the things you like least about others are to be found in yourself.