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February 5, 1999/19 Shevat 5759, Vol. 51, No. 19
Filling a void
Author shares parenting advice on Valley visit
TAMI BICKLEY
Staff Writer
Harriet Lerner
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Harriet Lerner frequently quotes one of her favorite novelists, Faye Weldon, who says: "The greatest advantage of not having children must be that you can go on believing that you are a nice person; once you have children, you realize how wars start."
Lerner, who has a Ph.D., is a family psychologist and psychotherapist who generally focuses on women's issues. She also is a writer. She churns out a monthly column for New Woman magazine and is the author of seven books, including "The Dance of Anger."
Lerner says she wrote her most recent book, "The Mother Dance," primarily because she believed that there was "a conspicuous absence of books that spoke of the mothering experience - what mothering is really like, and how relationships are transformed by having children."
Apparently, the dearth is global. "The Mother Dance" was published in 1998 by HarperCollins Publishing in eight languages.
Lerner will be in the Valley on Saturday, Feb. 13, to speak and to sign copies of "The Mother Dance" (in English) beginning at 1 p.m. at the Burton Barr Central Library, 1221 N. Central Ave. in downtown Phoenix.
Lerner explains in her book that the distinct differences in the personalities of her two sons, Matt and Ben, led her to realize how different people raised in the same family can be. Therefore, there is no universal, correct way to raise every child, she stresses.
"It is very important that mothers don't take expert opinion as the word of God," she says. "Each mother is her own expert, and everything about her affects how she views herself and her child."
For example, although Lerner's Jewish parents were "allergic to religion," she and her husband have chosen to create a more devout atmosphere for their children.
Still, we cannot control most of what happens to our children, and most of what we worry might happen, doesn't happen, she says. Meanwhile, many other bad things will happen that we have failed to anticipate.
Lerner notes that women generally feel unnecessarily guilty - Jewish women in particular. This guilt often is a product of society's unrealistic expectations of women. "I began worrying very early on, during my first pregnancy (with Matt)," Lerner confides. "I went through (pregnancy complications), but ultimately, things worked out fine. It was a lesson in vulnerability, surrender and the basics of motherhood."
Mothers and children, Lerner notes, are the least economically protected group in the United States, despite the age-old phrase "women and children first." Therefore, Lerner has peppered "The Mother Dance" with ways in which fathers can get more involved in raising a family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends will also find themselves in the book, and may gain a clearer understanding of how their words and actions can affect the social development of their loved ones.
Lerner says that when she married her husband, Steve, and moved to her current home in Topeka, Kan., she was dismayed by the ways in which some of her new friends were handling their children, she recalls.
"Before I had kids, I was arrogant. I knew I would never do anything like what (others) were doing," Lerner says. "I would never yell at my kids, or fight with Steve within their earshot. Of course, I did all these things and more when I became a mother."
With their two children now in college, Lerner and her husband are coping with empty nest syndrome. She discusses in her book the emptiness that strikes middle-aged parents, while adding a bit of humor on the subject, such as a list of reasons why it's good to have no kids at home.
Now that her children are pursuing lives of their own, Lerner says she has experienced the full-range of parenting - from childlessness, to mothering through the childhood and adolescent years, to encouraging her adult children's independence.
"It really helped me to have two sons," she says. "Everyone talks about how boys are different from girls. What I learned is how boys are different from boys. Kids come into the world with their own strands of DNA. Some are easy; some are a piece of work."
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