harry styles is helping me parent
lizzo too, and the beatles, and elton john, and anything I can do to avoid another round of hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog. IYKYK.
C and I both have a deep love for Harry Styles. I don't quite remember how this happened, but every so often, when it's just the two of us in the car, I make a rule about what kind of music we will listen to for the entire ride or the entire day or whatever suits me at the time. A single artist or a single era, or a single movie or musical. It all stems from avoiding listening to the 37 seconds of We're Off to See the Wizard over and over when he was 2, and for my own sanity at the time, I instituted a rule that we could only listen to The Beatles on the way to and from school. (a rule I very much enforced with other members of my family who take him and pick him up).
maybe
This rule saved me on frustrating days when he was being the biggest little shit you ever smelled, and there was always one constant I could instate immediately, and sing my ass off for the 8 to 17 minutes it takes to drive to school, and maybe he'd join me by the end and we'd be all better or he'd sit sullenly but I'm at least a bit more regulated because how can you not be when scream-singing helter skelter or lamenting about Eleanor Rigby's rather sad existence.
ANYWAY. Harry.
we can
Harry saves us a lot. And it doesn't seem to matter which song either, they are all perfect. They're all my favorite and when I say "this song is my favorite I think," C always says "mine too!" which I absolutely love.
"As it was" is probably the most poignant at least at this moment. Beginning with the very cute "come on harry, we wanna say goodnight to you!" recording of Harry's - apparently, I looked it up of course - godson, and the thoughts that "in this world / it's just us / you know it's not the same as it was" evokes on any given day, to the also extremely relevant: "Go home, get ahead, light-speed internet / I don't wanna talk about the way that it was / Leave America, two kids follow her / I don't wanna talk about who's doin' it first." I don't know y'all, I'm just in my car, shuttling my kid around to school and swim and UPS dropoffs and Costco and "can we have honk dogs for dinner?" and Harry telling me you know it's not the same as it was but also how the lightheartedness and the good feels that the key of A Major invokes...it's top drawer. It's good.
find a way
One day driving to a doctor's appointment for C, Matilda came on and C was being quiet in the back and again the lyrics just hit me in the face. "You can let it go / ... / You don't have to be sorry for leaving and growing up" I MEAN. HARRY OUT HERE GIVING ME PERMISSION AND TAKING ME TO THERAPY CHURCH. He's telling me I can start a family who will always show me love, and isn't that what we're all out here doing with these ridiculously loud children?? The day to day of this kid bullshit is so grating and hard and honestly awful sometimes. But the more I am writing this shit down and the more I'm reframing all the shit I trip over on the floor of every GD room in my house...I can take a deep breath, I can de-escalate myself, I can regulate, and realize: it's ok for me to do this, it's ok for me to do it my way, it's ok for me to make my own choices and then stand by them even when later they feel wrong. Because I am and was doing my best, and I don't have to be sorry. And it's ok that it's not how it was.
to feel good
Obviously - OBVIOUSLY - I can't always take this mental pause and like, appreciate all the screaming and whining and throwing of peas. There is food on the ceiling of my kitchen y'all and I am not ok with it. But I don't have to be sorry about not cleaning it. I don't have to be sorry for traveling alone when I need a break (and when I don't!). I don't have to be sorry. Period.
And I think partially this translates for me into not feeling guilty. For so much of life is powered by guilt and if it doesn't power yours then you were not raised Catholic and isn't that nice for you. Giving myself permission to NOT feel sorry for doing it on my own, doing it my way, translates to me not letting other people's expectations of me influence and power my actions. Harry says I don't have to, so I gentle parent. And I yell. And I don't enforce empty plates. And I allow candy before dinner. And I say no to toys every time we go to Target. And I say no to listening to Wheels on the Bus for the 94th time today. And I say yes to myself, to my kids when it's easy, sometimes when it's hard, and I release giving a shit what other people expect of me, think I should do, could do better. I mean, I release it, but you know it sticks around, always coming around for an impromptu visit like cousin Eddie and his janky RV.
and we can treat people with kindness
I want to keep singing Watermelon Sugar with my now-5-year-old boy, listening to him sing it, listening to him tell me that he doesn't think he could live without watermelon, either. Listening to him sing and only be able to smile and sing along, because if I pause to take a video, the music stops because of dumb bluetooth rules, so as of now, this is a memory that I carry in my brain alone and that makes it special but also sad because I want nothing more than to immortalize the preciousness that is a little boy singing “spinning out, waiting for ya to pull me in / I can see you're lonely down there / don't you know that I am right here?” as if it’s not the most poignant and teeming-with-connotations thing for us to be singing together. Listening to him say he thinks going to a show with me - you know the kind where the person sings and we watch dem in a seat and there's lots of people there - to see Harry sing would be really fun and maybe when he's 7 he'll be old enough to go to dat, what do you think of dat, Mama?
I fucking love it, that's what I think of dat.
seriously, what better way to end an essay about Harry Styles and a 5-year-old. I’ve started a piece on what it means to me that C has just turned 5 and I can already tell it’s going to be a doozy. I’ve temporarily made the entire archive available to all free subscribers, as celebration of C’s birthday, my 5th anniversary of momming, and to welcome some new subscribers. Go back to read the series I wrote when he turned 2, and a fun few pieces on doing what you want for no reason other than you wanna!
Thanks for being here, in a totally non snarky way. kbyeeeeeee!
