Every columnist has to contend with the charge, sooner or later, that she is using real life as her material. I suspect that my family, friends and even new acquaintances read Familyville for nuggets about themselves.
As I was leaving an Easter dinner this week, the friends who had invited us called out, "We cannot wait to read your column this week!"
This all makes me a little nervous. Whose experiences are these⢠Do they belong to me⢠Am I free to observe things, in print, about people I know⢠Or should the subjects be forewarned⢠Should they have rights of censorship?
One relative has asked that I talk to her about our interactions rather than write about them. She wants us to be open with each other. I want that, too. But her request misses the point. My observations about life are not personal. I do not need to hash it out. Talking is not the point. Getting it down on paper, interpreting what we are living -- that is the point.
If I was required to consult with the people involved about every incident and memory, I would write roughly two columns a decade. Not only would it be painfully slow, it would remove any element of profit, believe me. My thoughts and memories are my own, and I believe I should write about them freely.
Kurt Vonnegut argues in a book of essays called "Palm Sunday" that writers should write only if they have something that needs saying. Not everyone agrees with him. The authors of the movie "Cabin Boy" didn't have any deeper meaning. But I believe Vonnegut's assertion that writing ought to have value. It should be honest, revealing and, frequently, hard.
Sometimes, that means people will be uncomfortable with what I say here. So, when I write about people I know, I change the names to protect the guilty.
For example, I began a recent column with a story about a friend who admits to sending her son to day care with a dose of fever-reducing drugs, so he can get through the day when he has a slight illness. Not very politically correct. But I think many, many working parents resort to this, and the topic was important to raise.
Sometimes, I am direct about looking for column material. The members of the Parenthood Panel, who contribute to Familyville, are all aware that they could be quoted by name.
As another example, I recently asked my friend Matt why he ferries his daughters to lessons after school, and he said, "Because we are much better parents than our parents were."
As a parent, I have to laugh. Each generation believes that it is improving on the last. As a writer, I am more clinical. I am trying to figure out if I think Matt's statement is true. If I decide that it is, then I will write about it. Writing is about observing the culture. Being a mom or sister or wife is living the culture.
Not everything I write is a personal obsession. Sometimes a few parents will mention a topic to me -- such as the school theme days issue from last week -- and I will decide that it is worth exploring. It might not be a topic that affects my life at the moment, but if other parents care, then it's right for Familyville.
My father-in-law does not really understand this. Whenever he reads this column, he says, "You should try not to worry so much about things. Your daughters are turning out fine."
I tell him, "I am not so worried about things." But it is my job to explore them, in print, for other people to read and make up their own minds how they feel.
My children are young enough that they see only the good in the publicity they receive from a mention in a column. Isabelle, 7, wants me to write that she has been chosen as the Narrator and the Gander for a production of "Charlotte's Web." I could not imagine how I was going to work that into a column until just this moment.
Of course, the most frequent star of this column is my husband, Dan. He is not a writer, but he is creative in other ways. After 10 years of living with me, he has mostly grown comfortable with living out loud, and he encourages me to be truthful.
Sometimes, he finds an unexpected and pleasant surprise here, as when I wrote a couple of weeks ago that we are going through a happy chapter in our life together. I hadn't told him I felt that way. "We're doing well," he said to me after reading the column. I felt like Tevye and Golde in "Fiddler on the Roof," who after 25 years of marriage have a musical discussion about whether they love each other.
So, yes, my friends and family have reason to be wary. They never know when they will find themselves mentioned here, and they do not know whether it will be flattering. I can only promise to be gentle with real-life stories. I cannot promise not to tell them.
