North Star Writers Group

My son’s not even a year old yet, but he already has one look down pat – the look of confusion. Like the first time I put him in his crib without a mobile. He just looked up at me as if to say, “Who are you, and what have you done with Raffie and Ian?” (The giraffe and lion from the mobile, respectively.)

I’ve recently come to the realization that I won’t be able to explain a lot of things in life to him, especially when things contradict one another. Like his teacher telling him that not recycling is bad, then seeing our pizza boxes from Friday night in the garbage can.

Sure, I could change the way we do everything, so that he never has to deal with contradiction. But my parents never did that for me, and frankly, neither have my friends or bosses, and certainly not the advertisers.

I figure he’ll need to get used to it. Like when I was 10, and we started learning to equate smoking cigarettes with extreme evil. It must have been right around the time of Joe Camel’s demise, because all of a sudden, we were being told by all authority that butts equal buttheads. But then I’d go home to my mom, who was really cool and who I loved, and watch her light up.

I learned to disconnect the person from the habit. But you know what? I had to think about it. For a short time, I remember being confused. Why is this person who loves me trying to hurt herself, or me? Rather than think too long about it, I stole all her cigarettes and buried them in the vacant lot across the street instead. I am, after all, a woman of action rather than over-contemplation.

My son’s going to run into some of these same questions, probably a lot sooner than I ever did. Especially because he’ll be on the Internet in about six months.

Like just today, I was surfing CNN.com and found myself reading a story about a teenager who was arrested after her mother’s dead body was found in her garage. The ad just to the left? For a baby registry, of course! Because nothing says “shop for cute rubber duckies” like a rotting corpse, made that way by her own heir.

Later during that same surf-fest, I came across a legit article on the only equation that works for weight loss: eating less paired with getting off one’s buttocks. And no kidding, just below the article was an ad for a supplement claiming to have helped Helen lose 55 pounds in seven weeks.

That’s nothing compared to the dating service ad with the provocative “Someone could be searching for you right now!” headline. Sure, someone could. But pictured next to the headline was a Reese Witherspoon replica. Of course, Reese is newly single and a hottie. And of course, she’s online right now looking for a bald, 40-something guy who’s home on a Saturday night reading Sports Illustrated.com.

The contradictions in life don’t stop there. One of my recent favorites happened to me a few weeks ago at work. I was asked to be part of a Skunkworks group, and I was pretty excited. Skunkworks groups are small, innovative, stealth and, in many ways, free from other corporate restraints. Note the first word in that definition – small. A few days later, I learned that only about 100 other people are Skunkworking, too.

And… the… bubble…is … deflating. Thank you, contradiction, for opening my eyes to reality.

Again, I thought about myself at 10 years old. And I thought about my growing-too-fast, gonna-be-10-in-the-blink-of-an-eye-son. I wonder what contradictions and conflicts in meaning he’ll face, and I pray I’ll be able to help. My mom sure did! I remember that after I buried her cigarettes, I pondered in my bedroom why Lucille would leave Kenny Rogers with 400 children. (The line in the song is actually “four hungry children.” Boy, was I relieved when my mom explained that to me. I still didn’t like Lucille, but I could do math pretty well, and I knew 400 was a lot more than four.)

So, I dedicate this column to my son. Honey, mommy will always be here to help you interpret the lies, the only-partial lies, and of course, the lyrics.

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This is Column # CD35. Request permission to publish here.