Aviva Luria Archives - Mothering in the Middle

In Defense of Halloween…

by Aviva Luria

Years ago, I read an essay by a reform rabbi explaining why she didn’t allow her children to celebrate Halloween. It’s not a Jewish holiday, she said and, in addition, she abhorred the stereotypical images of women and girls as witches and bunnies and princesses.

I wanted to admire her integrity and determination in the face of societal pressure to celebrate a holiday she had issues with, but I couldn’t help but feel only sympathy for her kids. We go to the movies that day, she said in the article, and no one else is there. It’s wonderful.

Later, when I had a child of my own in daycare, another kid’s dad told me, “We don’t celebrate Halloween. We’re Christian.”

Wow. Halloween gets it from all sides, doesn’t it? […]

Love is Never Having to Say “Clean Up”

Aviva Luria

Earlier today, when my son went into the den to pick out a movie, I grabbed a few of his creations—construction paper topped with dried, crumbling Play-dough ‘sculptures’—and dumped them in the trash. They had been sitting on the coffee table for weeks, and every time I looked at them I fought off the urge to toss them.

Does that sound mean?

Let me explain further: Also in the living room, where I’m working, the sofa is festooned with (wonderful, whimsical) drawings of spaceships and astronauts, along with Star Wars figures, all affixed with tape. […]

This Is What Happiness Is…

by Aviva Luria

“Pickul Clan”

“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Someone posted the above quote by Kurt Vonnegut on Facebook recently and it truly spoke to me. I hadn’t encountered it before; although Kurt Vonnegut was one of my favorite authors in high school, I’ve read very little of him since. I loved him then because he made me laugh and think and view the world in a new, demented way, and this is likely at least partially why I am the way I am now: cynical but loving and tending to view the world in an odd, demented way.

Have you ever said to yourself, “I am happy now; this is what happiness is?” I’ve always thought it was a little odd that I do. I’ve long thought it was my writing tendency that so often made me feel as though I were standing apart from the scene in which I found myself, a somewhat impartial observer. Reading that quote made me realize that, even if that’s a strange thing to do, I’m not entirely alone. Kurt Vonnegut, at least, knew about that. […]

The Great Craigslist Hunt

by Aviva Luria

The hub-sand and I were proud of ourselves for not falling for what we viewed as the toddler-bed fiasco: the idea that when your baby outgrows his crib, you must buy him a cute, junior-size bed. A year or so later, your child’s head begins to press against the edge of that little rocket ship, Dora Explorer cupcake, or Thomas engine, a sign that it’s time to purchase a standard twin-size bed. […]

Three Short Tales

by Aviva Luria

Dead Thing

Have you ever been sitting somewhere in your house, somewhere you can’t simply move from at will, and noticed something creepily unrecognizable under the sink? It’s drenched in shadow and you can’t be sure what the heck it is: is it or was it once alive?Perhaps, you tell yourself, it’s just an oddly-shaped dustball. But no—it appears almost worm-shaped.

How did it get there? Is your child in danger? When you finish what’s necessary, you’re going to have to deal with it—are you up to the challenge? Is this Thing going to scare you out of your wits? Undermine the confidence in the cleanliness and pest-free state of your house? Your abilities as a mother?

Fortunately, you have a roll of paper towels within reach. (Although you’re aware they’re ecologically unsound, you haven’t been able to give them up just yet.) You tear one off and fold it, readying it for whatever’s waiting for you in the shadows. And when it’s time, you kneel on the rug to get a closer look and realize that it’s not about to strike out at you, that it never was a mobile organism, that it is merely a bit of dried-up foliage that undoubtedly stuck to someone’s shoe and got deposited there. So you scoop it up in the paper towel, toss it out, and forget about it entirely. Until, that is, the next time.

So… has this happened to you?

Me neither. […]