Little Blue Dress

When Cupid strikes a second time, you can wear any color you want

“Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.”—Epictetus

Author’s note: This week is National Suicide Prevention Week, a time to focus our efforts on preventing the tragic deaths of more than 800,000 people around the world who die each year by suicide. Many of them have mental illness and lack effective treatments. This week, I am in New York City with my second husband (we married in June) to promote my book on children’s mental health, The Price of Silence: A Mom’s Perspective onMental Illness, from Hudson Street Press.

Once upon a time, I wrote a blog about thrift store wedding dresses and second chances. It became a book called Little White Dress: Women Explore the Myth and Meaning ofWedding Dresses. This book earned me, my 25 co-authors, and Mill Park Publishing a 2012 Bronze Ippy Award in Women’s Issues from the Independent Publishers Association of America. This post is a follow-up to that original post. It is also an expression of immense gratitude for the life I have today, and for the man who chose to share it with me and my children.

A few years ago, anticipating what would have been my sixteenth wedding anniversary were it not for my divorce, I wrote a nostalgic post about thrift store wedding dresses and second chances. My essay sparked a steady stream of wedding dress stories—some bitter, some sweet, some funny, some achingly sad, all revealing various aspects of a woman’s life and experiences with love. I was so touched by these stories that I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect them in a book?”

So I called Elaine Ambrose, Midlife Cabernet blogger, owner of Mill Park Publishing, and a woman whom I think deserves the title of “Erma Bombeck Part II: The Sassier Sequel.”

“What if we do a book about wedding dresses?” I said.

“Sounds great!” she replied.

“And what if we put the book together in one day?” I was pressing my luck here—I knew it. But I had this vision, born of too many writing workshops where I left feeling unfulfilled and empty-handed, of creating a physical book in one sitting as tangible proof of my friends’ formidable writing talents

Any other publisher would have said, “Hell, no! There’s no way you can put a book together in one day.” 

But not Elaine. She didn’t even blink. “Sure,” she replied. “Let’s do it. I’ll supply the wine.”

And so Little White Dress: Women Explore the Myth and Meaning of Wedding Dresses, was compiled on August 8, 2011, three years after my divorce. It took a few more weeks to edit, lay the book out, and print physical copies. But start to finish, we completed the entire project in just a few weeks. Elaine hosted a swanky country club “book reception,” with proceeds benefiting Dress for Success, and I wore my original white wedding dress, a bit snug after four kids, but I could still zip it up if I only took shallow breaths.

I still remember when Elaine called to tell me the book had won a bronze 2012 Ippy Award in Women’s Issues. I was in the grocery store, looking for ketchup. “Do I still have to bag my own groceries?” I asked, so giddy with excitement that I announced the news to everyone on my aisle. I did still have to bag my own groceries. And I still do. But the medal looks really cool hanging on my office wall.

Now, of course, Elaine has surpassed our project with her own silver medal for Midlife Cabernet (the book version of her delightful blog), and I’m sure a gold is in her future.

And last June, I decided to put on a wedding dress again, this time, a blue one.

In August 2011, this is what I wrote about what that day, if it ever came, would mean to future me:

Will I ever wear another off-white dress on a day of goofy rituals? I can’t say right now that I see the attraction to that particular fairy tale. These days, I prefer the one where Cinderella breaks through the glass ceiling. But if I do decide again to don the costuming of love, I’m pretty certain of two things: first, I will love someone enough to wear a silly dress for him (this is no small amount of love), and second, I will buy the dress at a thrift store. Because every wedding dress deserves a second chance. 

At that time, I had officially resigned from the dating scene. Unpredictable, shallow men felt like a waste of time compared with my kids or my job. And besides, I was spending about half my time at IEP meetings, and the other half at the Ada County Juvenile Detention Facility or Intermountain Hospital, trying desperately to get help for a sweet little boy who sometimes flew unto uncontrollable violent rages.

Little did I know that the whole time I was crying in my cubicle, wondering how I would take care of my son and my other children, I was actually working right next to the person who would be my future partner in crime, Ed Pack, a red-headed Woodpecker who would promise to aid and abet me in a new set of life adventures (yes, that’s a Tom Robbins reference right there, folks).

I guess in hindsight, I should have known I had a thing for Ed when I offered to drive him to his colonoscopy in October 2011. I thought I was just being a nice boss—I was Jack Donaghy picking up Liz Lemon when she had her root canal on Valentine’s Day. The nurse called me “Mrs. Pack” that afternoon, and I didn’t correct her—maybe her comments got us both thinking.

Since we worked together, a romantic relationship wasn’t possible. But we built a solid friendship, sharing hiking stories and swapping books. Several plot twists later, I was working someplace else, and Mr. Pack called me up asked me out for a beer. It was the first of several—okay, four—dates before I couldn’t keep my hands off of him any longer. Yes, he really is that cute! 

And yes, it is no small amount of love that led me to a beach in Surf City, New Jersey, to wear a stunning light blue silk charmeuse hand beaded dress (new with tags) that I bought at, you guessed it, the Idaho Youth Ranch Thrift Store for $15. It’s my second-best thrift store find ever. The first was a 1925 Model M Steinway piano, in case you are wondering.

I wrote a bluegrass song for Ed and played it on the iPad. He wrote a poem for me, describing all the adventures we had shared, from backpacking the Washington Coast (“embrace the mud!”) to turning off our cell phones the night my “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother” post went viral. My kids fought to read us our vows (we had “officially” tied the knot a few days before at City Hall). We took silly beach selfies and watched my younger two play in the waves. I wasn’t too worried about my dress getting wet, because as I mentioned, it was $15. My new sister-in-law provided an elegant touch with peach-colored rose bouquets for my daughter and me, and boutonniers for the boys.

It cannot have been an easy decision for Ed to give up a comfortable solitary existence for the hustle-bustle of my busy life. Similarly, it was very hard for me to develop enough trust in a man to tie the knot again. We both had to be sure we were in this for the long-haul. Everyone has baggage at our stage in life; you just want to be with someone who carries his or her own.

This week, I’m profoundly grateful for that god of second chances, and for a partner who inspires me, supports me, challenges me, and excites me about the possibilities of life. His overarching credo is a sense of wonder, and we share profound gratitude for “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.” I’m sure we’ll face challenges—all couples do. But I feel confident in our combined ability to weather storms and marvel at sunrises and sunsets—together.

The Price of Silence

Dear Friends,

This is a humbling day for me. The first time I read a book and realized the power that words can hold over our hearts and minds, I knew that I wanted to write. Today, my dream of publishing a book has come true with The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness, from Hudson Street Press.

But for me, the price of realizing my dream was beyond anything I imagined. I wrote The Price of Silence because like most  of us, after Newtown, I wanted answers. My quest through the complex and often hostile systems that families and children who have mental illness must navigate was personal: I live this experience daily with my dear son.

Kirkus Reviews described my book as "a searing indictment of the lack of affordable care available for the treatment of mentally ill adolescents."

Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree (which everyone should read), wrote: 

In this courageous, determined, radical book, Liza Long exposes the dearth of alternatives for parents of kids with mental illnesses, the shame that attends their perceived failures, and the hope that such families may find their collective voice and demand better options.  I hope her passionate cry is heard far and wide.

I am profoundly grateful to the families, providers, police officers, educators, and advocates who shared their often painful stories with me. It's not easy to talk about mental illness; I know that truth firsthand. And I am especially grateful to my son, whose perspective provides valuable insight into mental illness and how it affects children. His humor, intelligence, and love have made my life immeasurably better. He is not a bad kid--he is an incredibly brave kid (and he just finished writing his first book! At age 14! It's about demigods from outer space).

But today, though I am grateful that so many people are speaking up and sharing their stories. I am also saddened at our inability as a society to act. People who have mental illness, including children, are "treated" in jail or left to die on the streets or by suicide. This is a national tragedy of epic and growing proportions. I feel that we have a moral obligation to care for our children, brothers, sisters, parents, friends, and colleagues who have mental illness.

I hope you will read my book. But more importantly, I hope that you will join me in speaking up for change. Please contact your representatives in  Congress. Join Treatment Before Tragedy. Participate in your local NAMI walks this fall. And share your stories. Their truth is powerful. Together, I know we can make a difference. In the words of one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost:

 

Only when love and need are one, 

And the work is play for mortal stakes

Is the deed every really done

For heaven and the future's sakes.

These are our children, and this is their--and our--future.

Best to you all!

Liza

P.S. If you do want to buy the book, please consider a local bookseller. Here are two of my favorites:

Iconoclast Books
www.iconoclastbooks.com
671 Sun Valley Rd W, Ketchum, ID 83340
(208) 726-1564

Rediscovered Books
www.rdbooks.org
180 N 8th St, Boise, ID 83702
(208) 376-4229

The Thread of Life

Giving weaves our threads into a tapestry

This year’s carol was one I started last year but couldn’t finish. I awoke Christmas morning of 2012 to a lump of unimaginable coal: the news that my time with my younger two children would be severely limited for a while. At first, I thought a week, maybe two. Then weeks stretched into months. Finally, almost a year later, I got the best present imaginable: reunification of my family. As I write these words, I hear merry voices laughing upstairs, playing the new Toy Story version of Disney Infinity that some guy in a red suit left under our tree this morning.

Back to the carol. (And apologies for how soft it is! Since I only do this once a year and technology changes so quickly, every year is another crash course in Video Production 101).



It's the latest entry in a decade-plus string of annual musical essays. I feel a kinship to Christina Rossetti, the Victorian poet whose lyrics explore the relationship between human and divine.  The lyrics are taken from Rossetti's three-sonnet sequence “The Thread of Life,” published in 1895, a year after her death. That title surely alludes to the classical Moirae, the three fates who spin, measure, and cut the thread that controls us. Yet Rossetti asserts that she herself controls her destiny: “myself is that one only thing/I hold to use or waste, to keep or give.” And as she does in her more famous poem, “In the bleak midwinter,” (a famous carol which I have also set to my own tune), she decides in "The Thread of Life" to give herself (as king) to her King.

The poem is also about solitude, the infinitesimal and infinite space that separates self from other. As I was working out the carol's dissonant harmonies this morning, I heard Adam Frank’s thought-provoking commentary “The Christmas Now: How to Be The Center of the Universe,”  Frank's words struck me with awe:

“The simple physical fact that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light means all of us — every man, woman and child — share the same predicament. We are all profoundly separated and yet deeply connected at the same time.” 

I think this is exactly the point Rossetti was trying to make in her poem more than 100 years ago, before we knew anything about the speed of light. And I’ve used the dissonance of major seconds to convey that all-too-human predicament, as well as postponing the longed-for resolution to the chord until the very end. The piece starts in E minor and ends, at last, in G major. Because you know what? That’s pretty much how I felt about this past year. (E minor is a nice key to be from; G major is a nice key to be in).

So how can we express our connection to each other? How can we overcome the aloofness that necessarily characterizes the human condition? Well, for starters, on Christmas Day, we can give.

Scads of studies show that giving and gratitude are the secrets to happiness. We saw that joy this season with #TipsforJesus. One study found that even children as young as two years old feel happier when they give treats to others. 

What are you giving this year? As 2013 draws to a close, I urge each of you to consider what you value most, then give something right now--money, time, love. I plan to donate to ChildMind.org  to support research and treatment for children who have mental illness. I also support the anti-stigma organization Bring Change 2 Mind  because when I felt truly alone last year, this organization helped me to find my voice. And I'm supporting Clarity Child Guidance Center because they represent real hope for children and families struggling with mental illness. Of course, I donated to NPR because it makes me feel smarter. And finally, I'm giving time to TeachIdaho, an organization that helps teachers to create communities of learners.

Though we are all individual threads of life, the tapestry we weave with others as we give is what creates meaning and purpose from solitude. Wishing you the joy of giving this Christmas season! 

I Am Not Adam Lanza's Mother

Now that we’ve talked about mental illness, when will it be time to act? 

Photo by Charles Mims, October 2013

Republished from The Blue Review, December 15, 2013 

On the morning of December 14, 2012 I closed the door to my office and started to cry as the news of a tragic school shooting in Connecticut blew up my Facebook and Twitter feed. My then 13-year old son “Michael” had been in Intermountain Hospital for two days, placed there against his will after an inexplicable and violent episode of rage he couldn’t remember. After years of struggles, we still didn’t know what was wrong, or how to help him. I was exhausted, sad and afraid. The isolation of living with a child who had a serious, undiagnosed mental illness made me feel like there was no hope for me or my family. 

That night, I sat down and wrote my truth. I told about the years of missed diagnoses, medications that didn’t work, costly therapies. I wrote about my worst fears for my son’s future. And as a national tragedy beyond comprehension intersected with my personal sorrow, I called for a conversation about mental health. My cry for help, which I published on my formerly anonymous blog, “The Anarchist Soccer Mom,” was picked up by The Blue Review and republished under the title “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” The essay was shared everywhere. Many people wrote me to say, “You told my story! I am Adam Lanza’s mother too!” But a few excoriated me for talking openly about my son’s struggles with mental illness. 

One year after the Newtown tragedy, where has that conversation about mental health led us as a nation? The official report about the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School could be summarized in five words: no answers, lots of guns. Lanza’s mental illness was certainly a factor. As the report notes, “the shooter had significant mental health issues that affected his ability to live a normal life and to interact with others, even those to whom he should have been close.” Like his mother. 

As the one year anniversary of the shooting approached, with yet another school shooting in the news, policy makers were paying more attention to mental health. After meeting with the families of the Sandy Hook victims this week, Vice President Joe Biden, whose initial response to the tragedy was to push for tighter gun control, announced a $100 million increase in funding to help people access mental health services. Half of the money will come from the Affordable Care Act; the other half has been pledged for rural mental health care, which should be welcome news in states like Idaho. 

Lots of things have been promised. For example, when the state mental hospitals closed, we were promised community based care. That never happened. The fact is that in December 2013, one year after Newtown, if you or a loved one is in crisis, you still have to call the police. And we continue to use prisons as the new institution to treat our adults and children who have mental illness. 

In the past year, I have slowly found my voice as an advocate for children’s mental health. I haven’t done it alone — my son has joined me in calling for an end to stigma, by bravely speaking out about his condition on Nova and in a StoryCorps interview. We were honored to share an award for family advocacy from the Idaho Federation of Families, which my son placed prominently on our piano. 

Where is my family a year later? I’ve had quite a bit of time to think about what I wrote. And I can’t sugar coat it: the consequences of my decision to put my name on my story were devastating to us personally, as we learned firsthand just how harsh the stigma of mental illness can be. 

Yet there were also rewards. I researched and wrote a book, The Price of Silence. The book will be released by Hudson Street Press in the fall of 2014.which explores stigma and other barriers to mental health care for children and families as they try to navigate the healthcare system, public schools and the criminal justice system. I also had the opportunity to speak at TEDx San Antonio, where I asked the audience why we never see a picture of a child with mental illness in a grocery store checkout line. 

My family has also found some answers. Michael now has a diagnosis — bipolar disorder — and medication that works. I can’t tell you how much this has changed our lives for the better. A year ago, I had almost no hope for my son. Now, we are talking about where he will go to college (he says Harvard or Oxford, but he’s going to have to bring his math grade up just a little bit). 

Above all, I’ve learned this year that I am most emphatically not Adam Lanza’s mother. While I still feel a great deal of empathy for Nancy Lanza, who surely loved her son as I love mine, we are different in two important ways. First, by acknowledging the seriousness of my son’s condition, I am empowered to do everything I can to ensure he gets the treatment he needs. 

Second, I don’t own guns, and I never will. 

Some have speculated that perhaps guns were a way for Nancy Lanza to connect with her son. My son and I share some common interests too: writing, history and Greek mythology. As far as I know, a love of history never killed anyone. 

Still, I believe that in the futile search for answers, too many people continue to blame Adam Lanza’s mother, the first victim of the tragedy in Newtown. Emily Miller of the Washington Times is representative of that view. As she explained in her Op Ed piece that followed the release of the official Sandy Hook report:

"In the end, we can’t blame lax gun-control laws, access to mental health treatment, prescription drugs or video games for Lanza’s terrible killing spree. We can point to a mother who should have been more aware of how sick her son had become and forced treatment.”

If only it were that easy. Instead, numerous barriers still exist for children and families who need access to mental health care. In 1999, NAMI published a report called “Families on the Brink: The Impact of Ignoring Children with Serious Mental Illness.” That report addressed school shootings in the wake of Columbine:

"As we struggle to make the lives of all our children better in the wake of unthinkable school violence, we must not forget our children who have serious mental illnesses and their families who love them.”

On December 14, 2012, more than ten years later, we watched again in horror as we witnessed exactly how devastating that impact of untreated mental illness could be to a community — and very little if anything had changed for children and families who needed help. 

If 2013 was the year to talk about mental illness, let’s hope that 2014 is finally the year to act. 

Watch my interview with Marcia Franklin on Idaho Public Television’s “Dialogue,” December 13, 2013.

Fabric Scraps and Old Wounds

What Joni Hilton’s “Are You a Liberal Mormon?” meant to me

On Saturday, sequestered by November’s first snowfall, the kids and I decided to clean out the closets, donating bags of clothes that don’t fit, old toys we no longer play with, and my fabric stash.

Parting with the last of my fabric was harder than I thought it would be—much harder, in fact, than selling the few pieces of gold jewelry my ex-husband gave me during our 13 years of marriage. I’ve shed fabric a few pieces at a time in the six years since The Divorce (the children still refer to it in capital letters, acknowledging the post-apocalyptic wasteland that remained in the aftermath of our temple marriage’s sudden and unexpected dissolution).

These last three bins represented my most cherished finds—colorful satin brocades, plush, luxurious Minky, quirky calico prints, and finally, the pink chenille I once lined with toile flannel and made into a couture outfit for my much-wanted and much-loved baby girl.

How I loved to sew in those days of young Mormon motherhood! I made train quilts and book bags and matching pajamas for the boys, documenting everything in carefully planned scrapbooks. But having a daughter took my sewing to a whole new level. I dreamed up outfits for her in my sleep, bought a serger, and spent many happy afternoons creating my masterpieces.

After The Divorce, I had no time for sewing. But I kept the fabric because of what it represented, a life I had lost but still sometimes longed for.

Last summer, my little pink chenille-robed pixie turned eight, and I pulled out the sewing machine once more, to fulfill a promise I made to her and to myself. We went to the fabric store where she picked out a pattern, white satin, and gold-leafed chenille for her baptism dress.

I was out of practice, and the dress, with its slippery fabric, gave me fits. Unable to put the zipper in, I conceded partial defeat and modified the design for buttons. I cut myself more than once and bled spots of bright red blood onto the white fabric.

And I cried as I stitched the seams together. Because the truth is this: I did not want my daughter to get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I still consider myself culturally Mormon, I no longer identify with the church’s teachings, and I fear that they can be especially toxic for bright young girls.

But baptism is what my daughter wanted (and no eight year-old should face the sort of social stigma she would endure if she didn’t).

Many brilliant Mormon and post-Mormon bloggers have done a better job than I could of articulating my own existential angst at the thought of my daughter’s baptismal covenants. Sitting behind her (I was not permitted to sit beside her) was one of the most agonizing moments of my entire life. Talk about NOT feeling the Spirit! Still, I smiled through the ceremony, shook hands, and got through the day. Because that’s just what you do, and it wasn’t about me anyway.

But I didn’t realize how truly bothered I was by the whole baptism pageant until I read Joni Hilton’s essay, “Are You a Liberal Mormon?” I know it’s so two weeks ago, but Ms. Hilton is still on my mind, because you know what? She is exactly like many of the Mormons I know—smug, self-righteous, and “perfect.”

If not staggering out of bars at 2:00 a.m. makes you perfect. Because that is apparently what “liberal Mormons” do (?????). Ms. Hilton’s essay was quickly taken down, probably because even the editors of Meridian Magazine had to realize how toxic it was. In case you somehow missed it, you can read Mormon Stories’ excellent coverage of the debacle here. 

This quote really stood out for me: “Liberal Mormons have forgotten that Christ runs this church, not mortals. God’s laws are uncheangeable [sic] and eternal, not somebody’s notions that sway in the breeze and adapt to each new social trend.”

Except they aren’t. Many Mormons I know manage the dizzying act of being both relativists and absolutists simultaneously. Blacks and women can’t hold the Priesthood, only now blacks can because in 1978, God changed his mind. Gay people can’t get married because God said they can’t, but God also used to say it was okay to have several wives, and now that’s just not okay.

These are not unique insights, by the way—these are glaringly evident examples of God changing his mind gleaned straight from sanitized LDS church history.  

One of the attractions of Mormonism has been the image and lifestyle that people like Ms. Hilton represent—clean-living, wholesome, nuclear families with hard-working, shirt-and-tie fathers, even harder working stay-at-home mothers, and a slew of bright, polite, successful children. I want to make it very clear that I am not criticizing that lifestyle. It works well for many people.

What I am criticizing is something I used to do myself as a temple going, faithful Mormon mother: Mormons have got to stop judging the latte drinkers.

You know what I mean. Jesus, if there is a Jesus, does not give a damn about whether somebody drinks coffee or not. He just doesn’t. This is a God whose first miracle was to change water to wine. When I was in Mormon Sunday School, the lesson focused obsessively on explaining that the “wine” in question was actually nonalcoholic grape juice. Now that I’ve enjoyed a glass or two of cabernet sauvignon for myself, I have to say that I very much doubt this. No one would be impressed by a god who changed water to grape juice.

Closet cleaning accomplished, my Saturday turned to a much anticipated interfaith choir concert hosted by my parish and organized by a local LDS stake music director. I had the opportunity to catch up with many of my LDS friends as we shared worship music. The concert featured several local church groups, with a finale sung by a 100-member chorus. My friends embraced me; we caught up on their children’s missions and college plans. I felt loved and included and best of all, not judged.

The LDS church is at a crossroads. Its branded lifestyle, the so-called traditional family as described in the Church’s document The Family: A Proclamation tothe World, is increasingly rare, for a variety of reasons. Yet people like Ms. Hilton cling to their own notions of righteousness, categories that exclude and hurt people both within (the “Liberal Mormons”) and outside of their faith.

I’m not sure about many things, but I am pretty sure that’s not what Jesus would do. Jesus would have an interfaith choir concert followed by a community potluck every single night of the week. And all—Mormons, Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Pastafarians—would be welcome at the table.

P.S. If you live in the Boise area and want some pretty awesome fabric, I donated my stash to the Goodwill on State Street. I hope your daughter looks as fabulous in your creation as my daughter did in mine.

The Conformist Football Dad

Why can fathers tell it like it is when mothers can’t?

I miss my anonymous blog. It used to be this fun space where I could vent about the challenges (and occasional joys) of raising four kids as a single mother, juggling(and sometimes dropping) work, school, and mommy balls. When I complained to a friend that I could no longer write whatever I wanted, he suggested I start another anonymous blog and call it (tongue in cheek) “The Conformist Football Dad.”

But I realized something yesterday, when I read Steve Wein’s funny and honest take on parenting small children. If I started a daddy blog, I would not need to keep it anonymous. Because Dads get carte blanche to say pretty much whatever is on their minds. Things like, “You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.” Or “You are not a terrible parent if you'd rather be at work” (There are lots of times I would rather be at work. And look where admitting that got Sheryl Sandberg!).

Instead of the blogosphere ripping Dads up for writing books like Go the Fuck to Sleep, everyone smiles and nods and says, “Isn’t that cute?” (well, a few people were offended, but they probably weren’t parents).

Confession: I wish I had written that book (and I thought of it, while inserting my own occasionally colorful commentary into Goodnight Moon during the roughly 4,745 times I read it in desperation to my own sleep-challenged progeny).

I also wish that I had written Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I’m not a big Jane Austen fan—I recommend her work to anyone who has difficulty falling asleep at night. The only one of her books that I ever managed to finish was Mansfield Park, and that’s just because it was the only English language paperback in the bookcase of the Sorrento pensione where I finished out my junior year spring term study abroad. As one of my philosophy professors once said (in jesting reference to the Mormon prophet David O. McKay), “No excess can compensate for failure to go to Rome.”

What McKay actually said was this: “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” No pressure there! And for Mormon mothers, the church’s position on gender roles is clear: “Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” 

Yup. And 40 percent of mothers (myself included) are also solely or primarily responsible for putting food on the table.  Which is why it's weird that we keep attacking each other.

I finally got around to reading some of the criticism that followed my December 14, 2012 blog post telling my family’s story about having a child with mental illness. Sarah Kendzior, for example, had a field day mining four years of pretty standard (and anonymous) mommy blog material to create a picture of me as a narcissistic monster who wanted to strangle her kids all the time (Not true. Only when I venture upstairs into the oozing mold pit that is my teenage sons’ bathroom).

But it was one of my favorite slate.com writers, End of Men author Hanna Rosin, who really put the mommy boxing gloves on. In her essay, “Don’t Compare your Son to Adam Lanza,”  she suggested, among other things, that I was the one who really had mental problems (I think Ms. Rosin is just envious of my mad writing skillz).  

For the record, I did not compare my son to Adam Lanza. I compared myself to his mother. My point was, and still is, that we as parents of children with mental illness and mental disorders need to speak up.

And it seems like it’s okay to talk about your child with mental illness, or even your own struggles—as long as you are the father and not the mother. David Sheff’s brave and eloquent book about his son’s addiction, for example, or Pete Earley’s Crazy.  But if you write Drunk Mom  watch out!

I’ve gotten more than a few queries from reporters who want to “expose the truth” about what I wrote. They couch their requests for interviews in vaguely threatening terms about “fact-checking” and “privacy.” All of them, interestingly enough, are women.

Hey, girlfriends! Privacy is just another word for stigma.

To be honest, I’m grateful for the backlash. It helped me to clarify my own position and realize the importance of advocacy. That my first attempt to tell my painful truth happened to go viral was something beyond my control. But it has provided me opportunities to meet people, to share stories, and to campaign for change.

So don’t look for the Conformist Football Dad. I’m the Anarchist Soccer Mom, and I’ll keep talking—and acting—to help my son. You can speak up too. And if the other mommies start to beat you up, come out swinging. None of us—dads or moms—are perfect parents. But we all want the same thing: happy, healthy, productive children. Let’s help each other get there.

From Anarchist to Advocate

Learning from the pros on Anderson Cooper’s “Guns under Fire”

It’s a standing joke among my friends: before my blog post about my mentally ill son went viral, I did not know who Anderson Cooper was.

Let me explain this grave lapse of cultural literacy. After September 11, 2001, I sat in front of our television in slack-jawed horror, watching the towers fall over and over, for weeks. Then one day, I looked away from the TV and saw my four year-old son building a tower out of blocks and crashing his toy airplane into it.

So I gave up television. I didn’t actually mean to give it up completely—I’ve always been an early adopter and figured we would have the content on demand by 2003. My timeline was a few years premature. And by the time technology caught up, I was no longer interested in TV.

Now I get all my news from Facebook. It’s the perfect mix of local (kids, pets, vacations) and national, and since my friends are so clever, I trust them to pick the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and HuffPost articles I should read.  In that respect, Facebook has been a real timesaver for me. Okay, I’m not kidding anyone here. Facebook is a complete waste of time. But since I’m not watching “Jersey Shore” or “American Idol” or “Downton Abbey,” I feel okay about it.

Still, it’s become apparent that my Facebook friends aren’t quite clever enough. Because if they were, they would have been as agog over Anderson Cooper as the blurred-face woman in the picture above (she looked like a four year old girl about to meet a Disney Princess).

Cooper is the real deal—whip smart, funny, compassionate, able to shovel through the bullhorn bullshit that passes as public discourse these days and emerge with a squeaky clean smile.

When Anderson Cooper 360 decided to do a town hall meeting on guns, the producer, Kerry Rubin, called and asked me to talk about my experiences as a parent of a mentally ill son.

I couldn’t say no. And it was one of the most amazing and humbling experiences of my life.

I got to meet Amardeep Kaleka, a gun owner whose father was killed in a rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Sarah McKinley, who made headlines when she defended her home and her baby against intruders. Tio Hardiman, who works with Chicago’s youth to try to change potentially destructive behaviors and save lives. And Veronique Pozner, who lost her sweet young son in the tragic Sandy Hook shootings. 

Their stories all give nuance and complexity to a debate that too often looks like something drawn by toddlers with crude, bold crayons.

I also met Joshua Boston, the former Marine whose letter to Senator Diane Feinstein about her proposal to ban assault weapons also went viral. Josh is a passionate and articulate spokesperson for gun owners.

I shared a car on the way to the Town Hall with the inimitable Gayle Trotter, an activist, attorney, and mother of six who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about how guns actually make women safer. Gayle is as powerful an advocate for her Second Amendment rights as the Brady Campaign’s president Dan Gross (one of my oldest son’s heroes) is for gun control.

(In case you missed it, I’m not an anarchist—I’m a Libertarian. Not a big fan of laws, generally speaking. But also not a big fan of gun violence and school shootings.)

And I’m not a big fan of former NRA president Sandy Froman’s repeated use of the word “insane” on the program (at least she avoided “deranged” and “evil”). Every time she said it, I winced. Still, thanks to the First Amendment, Froman has every right to use that word, and while I wish she wouldn’t, I am not going to engage in ad hominem attacks (Dan Gross, on the other hand, was consistently respectful to people who suffer from mental disorders).

Highlights of the afternoon included meeting Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Jeffrey Toobin, and watching Kerry Rubin in action—she’s like a conductor who takes raw notes on a score and turns them into a full orchestral suite.

In my own moment on camera, I got one good line in—“Why can’t we use our resources to make people less dangerous?” I don’t really remember the rest of what I said, just that Anderson Cooper’s eyes are really that blue.

In the end, Cooper couldn’t solve the gun problem in one town hall meeting. But he gave a hint at how to solve it when asked which team he favored in Sunday’s Super Bowl. Cooper responded with a grin, “Beyoncé.”

Sometimes when we can’t agree on something important (Ravens or 49’ers, for example), we have to look for something we can agree on. I am grateful to Anderson Cooper and his entire team for an impartial and thoughtful contribution to a vital conversation about guns and mental health, and for including me in that conversation. 

It’s not easy to be an advocate, but sometimes our causes find us, even when we don’t expect them. I’m grateful for the opportunity to change a national conversation. Maybe it’s not about guns: maybe it’s about mental health.