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Blog book tour: Ayun Halliday - Mama Lama Ding Dong
By ella | August 21, 2006
I am honoured to be hosting today’s stop on Ayun Halliday’s blog book tour of her book Mama Lama Ding Dong: A Mother’s Tale from the Trenches (known in the US as The Big Rumpus).
Mama Lama Ding Dong is a memoir of motherhood, Ayun’s account of life with her two small children, spirited toddler Inky and chubby baby Milo. It covers the universal themes associated with bringing up two small children, reflecting on the daily grind, maintaining a sense of self, dealing with lice, the politics of breastfeeding, fears about death, her adoration of her baby. Interspersed are stories about her own childhood, celebrating religious holidays in non-religious ways and views on circumcision all told with irreverent, self-deprecating humour and set against a background of New York City life.
Ayun is the creator of The East Village Inky, a zine born out of the isolation and despair that followed the birth of her daughter. Mama Lama Ding Dong, in turn, has grown out of the zine. Ayun’s observations about bringing up children are spot-on. She writes ‘What’s it like being the unpaid caregiver of little children? Fucking grueling, mate….I think the thing that gets to me the most about the stay-at-home mother gig is the constant side work. …. I find myself wishing Mary Poppins would blow over to teach me that nifty finger-snapping trick.’ And on the subject of payback she writes: ‘It strikes me as quite possible that by the time my children hit the teen years …. I’ll be the one driving them crazy with my idiosyncratic behaviour, my infuriating desires and my interminable stories about the cute things that they did when they were little. At long last I will get my turn and use it to drive them right up the fucking wall.’ I love it!
There are many moving chapters too. ‘NeoNatalSweetPotato’ describes Inky’s birth story and time in the NICU: ‘the luckiest mothers get to rock their babies in their arms, their faces ecstatic, drunk from contact.’ And in ‘Mashnote to Milo’ she captures all those feelings we have about our babies, that time when they are pudgy-chubby and milky-sour: ‘I love every inch of your body. Your breath is pure banana. I am completely infatuated.’
Ayun manages to convey not only her joie de vivre for raising children in the city but also how she adjusted to life with a baby, maintaining a sense of balance between her old life and her new role as a mother - in her case by creating something new out of the loss of identity she felt.
There is a great deal of pressure to ‘measure up’ to the notion of motherhood portrayed by the media and the endless rows of - often dictatorial - parenting manuals. Ayun’s account of wonderfully imperfect motherhood is refreshingly honest. Her book shows that there is much that is common to all Western mothers: isolation, sleep deprivation, difficult toddlers, a loss of identity, all inextricably bound up with the love and private moments that make it all worthwhile. It would have been easy for me - and possibly you too - to read the book feeling acutely aware of the differences in our lives but Ayun writes with enough candour and humour about the joy and difficulties of being a stay-at-home mom that the similarities of our lives were much more apparent than the differences. It’s comforting to know that despite all our differences, mothers across the world are experiencing similar circumstances.
I asked Ayun:
I’m finding it difficult to remember anything at the moment. If I have a rare good idea I find myself unable to remember it twenty seconds later when whatever child-centred moment of crisis that’s taking place is over. How do you combine writing with small children? What did you do if inspiration for Mamalamadingdong struck while you were in the middle of changing your baby’s nappy (diaper) or something?
Unlike the books that followed it, which reflected on my travels, my crappy day jobs, and my culinary history from the vantage point of some remove, Mama Lama Ding Dong was unfolding in real time. Changing diapers was field research. (Never has a manuscript been so well researched.) Inky was in nursery school, and unless something happened to throw him off, Milo could be counted on to conk out for an hour or more every morning. Fortunately, I didn’t have to waste valuable naptime referring to my field notes. Inspiration was all around me, on the baby food flecked walls, in the glamorous tangle of Inky’s dress up clothes, exhaled on the sleeping baby’s sweet banana breath.
It came with the territory that Milo almost always woke up before I was ready to call it quits, but that turned out to be okay, good even. I once read that Ernest Hemingway used to knock off before he’d finished saying what he had to say, so he’d have a thread to pick up when work commenced the next day. Same here, though I envied him his barstool at the Closerie des Lilas. I too would have liked to celebrate the end of the daily literary labors with some oysters and champagne, to be done working when I was done working, you know?
You talk in the book about how you envisaged life with a baby (curled up on the floor at your feet like a kitten) and the reality (mopping up pee on the floor) but the overall impression I got of the book was that life with small children is great fun and that you can still be a fully-accepted member of society, not ‘simply a mom’ (by this I mean that mothers as a group are frequently marginalised and can also be socially isolated, especially in the suburbs where often they are the only people around during the day, whereas urban dwellers have more on their doorsteps). How much do you think this was due to the fact that you lived in a city, not in suburbia or the country and that you were able to get out and about on foot with the children without having to have a fixed schedule of playdates or trips out?
[I’m a countryside dweller and I definitely miss having a sense of purpose when we go out walking. I also think that if I had places to go I would be out walking with the children much more than I do now, mixing with all sorts of people (not just other mums), all colours, all creeds, getting exercise, shedding pregnancy pounds. Whilst our lives are very different and I chose to live in the country, I definitely felt a sense of loss when you describe life in the city. My husband is cross that I’ve read your book: he thinks I want to move back to the city now! (He may be right!)]
I think location had a great deal to do with it. I didn’t have to set up or go hunting for interesting social interactions. All we had to do was tromp down three flights to East 9th Street. Most of the families who hung out in the Tompkins Square playground lived in apartments as ridiculously small as ours, which upped the likelihood of running into someone we knew and liked if we could just get it together to put on our shoes, rain slickers, or snowsuits. There are ways in which New York is a very easy place to be with a little child. You can get anywhere on the subway, and be fairly assured that you’ll always be near a source of bananas, bagels and juice, if you forget yours at home. It’s not for everybody: the germ phobic, the crowd-phobic, those whose physical concerns require cars and strollers as opposed to public transit and slings, and for anyone who has a horror of pissed-on sidewalks and non-pristine grass, but for me, it was and is perfect. Your kids get to commune with nature (in a bonafide natural setting!). My kids get to commune with all sorts of oddballs, some of them human, one of whom is their mother.
You also talk about breastfeeding toddlers and breastfeeding in public places, activities which are often frowned upon by the public at large. I’ve adopted a new approach to the tutting and sighing that often accompanies public breastfeeding and that is, when I have finished feeding, I smile at the person who has been making those few minutes so uncomfortable, then I smile a bit more and then I get up and go over to them and say ‘hello, it’s so nice to see you again, how are you?’ with exaggerated friendliness. Usually they are so embarrassed and confused by my action and I feel such sweet pleasure in embarrassing them that it makes up for their stupid staring and sighing. Almost. I’m a pretty shy person but I feel really strongly about not being made to feel like a pariah when I’m feeding my baby that I am prepared to become a completely crazy woman on this subject! (Okay, now you can tell me I should be locked up). Should breastfeeding mothers be an acceptable public sight, in the same way that a mother bottle-feeding her baby is? And if so can we as mothers do anything to make public breastfeeding more acceptable?
No way should you be locked up for that brilliant activist solution! I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but of course it shouldn’t be an issue for a nursing mother to feed her child in public. One thing I really like about your hilarious tactic is that it comes disguised as a gesture of good will, rather than confronting rudeness in a manner that would be perceived as equally rude. Be above reproach when you breastfeed your child in public. Smile sweetly at those who would treat you nastily. Say “please” and “thank you”, just as you hope your child will in most social situations. Speak kindly to your older children, the ones who are hanging around whining (or not) while their younger sibling refreshes him or herself on the teat. Be the poster-child for The Society to Normalize Breastfeeding in Public Places. And as a card-carrying member, if you see someone giving the fish eye to a breastfeeding sister, it is your duty to override that ill-intentioned nastiness with support. Offer her your chair. Amuse her older children. Plop yourself down on the bench next to her and engage in pleasant chatter about the weather . Tell her you love what her kid is wearing. Otherwise the terrorists win.
I think most mothers would agree that being a mum is not accorded a lot of respect by society as a whole. I struggle with this, given how important our role is, that we are raising the next generation. What are your feelings about the way motherhood is perceived?
Here in the Western World, a lot of it seems to be media-driven and some of it is generational.
I try not to get too offended when childless young hipsters in their early 20’s assassinate the maternal character, bitch about “badly behaved” babies on planes, that kind of thing. I assume that most of them will get theirs, and hopefully, when they do, I won’t behave like one of those disapproving elders who can’t deal with the idea of children being raised differently than they raised theirs. I often find that what the disapproving elders really want is to reminisce about when their kids were small, and if their audience listens patiently and politely, they become less disapproving. Or not. You can’t scrub the spots off of every leopard and why give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome and a nervous breakdown trying to force it?
As far as the media goes, seek out and possibly even generate alternate media. Boost its visibility and circulation by making certain books and subscriptions to certain magazines your go-to baby shower presents. Expectant parents need to get hip to what’s out there more than they need some adorable onesie and an impractically huge stuffed duck! Present them with a list of blogs you like, the ones that keep your wig on straight after a long, frustrating day of REAL motherhood. If you see a character in an independent movie that embodies your experience, tell your friends to put it in their rental queue! Patronize independently-owned businesses that accommodate parents with small children along with other less-burdensome customers. Organize an outdoor festival where folks with children won’t be herded off to a sad little corner where a hungover clown is twisting up lame-ass balloon animals. Demonstrate by example that the bulk of the mainstream media has its head jammed high up its heiner with respect to the noble, grueling office of motherhood!
How have you changed since you had children? Do you still hang out with friends who haven’t had children and if so how do you find things in common when staying at home with small children all day can sometimes be rather repetitive and draining?
Hopefully I would have grown and evolved even if I hadn’t spent the last nine years raising the feral young. I have endured the greatest physical pain of my life. I have been scared half to death. I am better equipped to understand other parents’ experiences. I have common ground with a much wider range of people. My patience has been tested, snapped and regained. I’ve accepted that I’m not the sole mistress of my destiny. I have had to put myself second, third, sometimes even, fourth. The sands of time have speeded up seconds after it seemed like they were standing still.
Yeah, I do still hang out with friends who have not gone on to have children. My children have lots of childless adult friends, and the ones who can tolerate their company for longer than a couple of hours tend to be rewarded with the honorific, “Uncle”. We talk about whatever’s going on in our lives, just the way we did before I became a mother. We spend a lot of time talking about our upcoming projects, and I recount in depth the plots and dialogue of whatever book I’m reading or a movie I recently enjoyed, a habit I picked up from my father. It’s true that there are old friends I would like to see more, but it’s a natural progression that while I was home, changing diapers and such, they were joining theater companies, starting businesses, hanging out in bars, traveling, and that with those activities come new friends, a circle of people who are more available to do those sorts of things than I am.
Here’s a pisser that I didn’t anticipate: many of my childless friends have gone on to have children! Now that my kids are older, able to behave themselves in restaurants, walk long distances, amuse themselves with books, refrain in large part from whining, my childless friends are childless no more, but subject to the rules and regulations of parents with toddlers and babies! Argggh! It makes the whole concept of Elderhostel very appealing.
And my circle has expanded exponentially in the last nine years. I’ve met so many great people because their children are my children’s ages. Some of them have become really close friends. We have fun as well as each other’s backs. And we have plenty to talk about besides the dang kids.
What’s next for you, what future projects do you have lined up and what do you plan to do with the precious time you have when the children are in school?
As soon as this blog tour’s finished, I want to get kicking on an illustrated novel for young adults, hopefully one of those young adult novels that non-young adults will read too!
And if all goes according to plan, we’re going to take the kids out of school for a month next spring, fly to Budapest to visit the recently relocated cousins, and wander through Turkey, Greece and wherever else the wind might blow us. That’s the kind of home schooling I can handle!
****************
In Mama Lama Ding Dong, mothers everywhere will recognise their own lives. Funny, honest, rarely sparing the details that mothers want and need to hear about the daily grind of life with small children to remind them that they are not the only ones, the book reflects the joys and horrors of life with small children. But most of all it shows life doesn’t have to stop when you have a baby but that, really, it’s just getting started.
Many thanks to Ayun for inviting me to participate in her blog book tour. You can buy the book here (in the UK) or here (in the US). And in case you needed further persuasion to buy it, I’ll leave you with one of the most evocative passages in the book:‘The nurses pad between the bins on their gum-soled white nurse feet, bending to the babies like seraphim, spotlit. The banks of monitors click and whir. The babies lie still, their eyes closed, even the crack babies, breathing together, in and out, their tiny hearts pattering like the hearts of mice. Sleeping. Or maybe they’re born knowing everything and this is the time when they’re busy erasing the tapes.’
Erasing the tapes: what a perfect thought.
(I received a free copy of this book in order to review it. I was free to say whether I loved or hated it. You can see my policy on transparent blogging here.)
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Categories: Blog Book Tours, Reviews
5 Comments
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Fantastic!
(Now off to steal all your best bits for when I host the book tour in a couple of days…)
Great review! It sounds like a great book. I’ll be getting my copy when I’m in town tomorrow.
I read this book and felt that I couldn’t really relate to the author. I might go back and read it again now though.
I’ve been looking for something new to read. Thanks muchly.
Great review. I loved that book!