For me, being a parent is almost indistinguishable from being a poet.
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When I was a little girl, I always imagined that when I grew up I would have three children. That’s how many there were in my family, and it seemed like just the right number to me. However, I vowed, they would be close enough in age that they could all hang out and have fun together. That was the one thing wrong with my family. My two sisters were only eighteen months apart, and basically did everything together. I was five and a half years younger than my middle sister, seven years younger than the eldest, always too young to be included in any of their activities.

Ironically, I ended up doing the same thing when I had children.

My first two children were born a little more than three years apart. One girl, one boy, both perfect in my eyes, so it seemed unlikely that I would have any more. Since their age difference was greater than that of my sisters (who were in their cribs together), it took a while for them to become playmates, but by the time Sabrina was five and Ben was two, they were thick as thieves. They loved playing together, and spent endless hours making up games with Sesame Street figurines, or Legos, or that perennial favorite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As the children of my first marriage, they bonded even more closely after their father and I split up, and they had to shuttle back and forth between our two houses.

When Ed and I got together after my marriage ended, he opened his heart to my two children, and was a wonderful stepfather to them from the very beginning of our relationship. However, he wanted a child of his own, who would have his genes and call him Daddy. So I agreed to have another child. This turned out to be not so easy at the age of forty. When I didn’t get pregnant within a couple of years, we resorted to fertility treatments. At one point, I was going in to the doctor’s office every day for a shot of some fertility drug. Finally I said “enough.”

What triggered my decision was watching the movie The Graduate, which we had both seen when it came out (we were in high school), and which we thought it would be fun to revisit more than 25 years later. There is a famous scene where Mrs. Robinson says to the new college graduate, “Benjamin, I am twice your age.” I heard that line, realized it meant she was in her early forties, burst into tears and ran out of the room. Ed followed me to find out what I was so upset about. “We’re not Benjamin and Elaine any more, we’re Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. That means we’re too old to have a baby.”

So we canceled the fertility treatments, came to terms with not having a baby together, and went on about our lives. Of course — it is almost a cliche — within a month or two after we stopped trying, I got pregnant. When Molly was born, I was 44 years old. Sabrina was 11, and Ben was just one month shy of 8. The good thing about their being so much older was that there was absolutely no sibling rivalry. They were delighted with her, viewed her as the best toy I could have gotten them. The next year, when I had to take Sabrina to weekly Torah study to prepare for her Bat Mitzvah, Ben was so proud of being left in charge of Baby Molly. But needless to say, the age gap was too great for them ever to hang out with her. And they were both off at college by the time Molly was 10.

So the spacing that I had objected to in my family of origin had been visited on Molly to an even greater degree. I don’t know if she minded not being included in their activities. And sometimes she actually was. There was one memorable Saturday night that Ben was supposed to go to his Physics study group, but had to stay home to babysit for Molly because Ed and I were going out. So after we left, the Physics study group came over to our house. (As we suspected but only confirmed years later, this study group spent a lot more time socializing than they ever did studying Physics. That should have been obvious by the fact that they were meeting on Saturday night.) Since the group wanted Ben to be unencumbered, one of the girls volunteered to read a book to Molly and put her to bed. Molly enjoyed that, but decided she didn’t want to stay in bed, and came back downstairs. They ended up all playing Apples to Apples, and Molly won the game! She was 7 and they were 15 and 16, but it turned out that she was the best at picking winning cards. (For those who are not familiar with the game, here’s a description:  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/74/apples-apples. It wasn’t a question of them “letting” her win, because the winning card in each round is chosen without knowing who submitted it.)

Like me, Molly had the advantage, or disadvantage (depending on one’s perspective), of spending many years as the only child at home. As a result, I did many more things with her than I did with the older kids, including going to concerts. I have seen Taylor Swift (3 times!), Katy Perry, My Chemical Romance, Maroon 5, Fall Out Boy, Neon Trees, and Christina Perri with her. In return, she saw Bonnie Raitt with me. I was the leader of her Girl Scout troop. I was also her lab partner for her online high school chemistry class, which was fun for me because I had never taken chemistry when I was in school.

Molly and Sabrina, although eleven years apart, did get to know each other as peers after Molly reached her teens. Sabrina was a “boomerang kid” twice, coming back home to live with us for long periods between her first and second stints in graduate school, and again between grad school #2 and getting a job. During those boomerang periods, the two girls hung out together quite a bit. They both love to shop, and I do not, so I was happy to send them off to the mall together. They would also find interesting recipes online and cook dinner occasionally. Sometimes people would ask if they were twins, which was pretty amazing when one was 28 and one was 17. Sabrina lives in Spain now, which makes it harder to keep in touch, so in retrospect I value those periods that she was back at home doing things with Molly, even though at the time I was eager for her to leave and get on with her life.

With Molly off at college, I am finally an empty-nester. I have never been without a child around for 31 years of my life, and now I am at a little bit of a loss. Since Molly’s school is near LA, and Ben is living in LA writing comedy, it is tempting to think of moving down there myself, but of course they are better off without me hovering nearby and it wouldn’t make sense to leave Sacramento.

In Florida with Molly (19), Sabrina (30), Ben (27)

Looking at them now, I’m feeling pretty good about how well they all turned out. And not a single tattoo or piercing (except Molly’s ears) among them. So I guess I did okay bringing them up, although I certainly made plenty of mistakes along the way.

It seems crazy to me that it takes three years of schooling and passing a 3-day written exam to become a lawyer, yet it takes no schooling and no exam to become a parent. Parenting is so much harder!

“Heck,” my partner suggested “Go back to school. Who knows? — maybe you'll even learn something.”
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David came home for Christmas break from Stanford freshman year and announced he was going to join the band. I scoffed. He had played piano in elementary school, so perhaps remembered how to read music, but knew no other instrument that would help in a marching band. “What will you play,” I queried, “the triangle”? “They will teach me an instrument”, he replied. And so they did…the tuba, or more properly, the Sousaphone. You must understand, David is 5″6″, so somewhat overwhelmed by the size of the instrument. I suspect that was part of the joke.

The Stanford Band is notorious. They are a scatter band. The do not march in formation, they run to their positions on the field to make whatever formations are required for the desired effect. They try to be witty or political, but frequently are offensive. Before David’s time they were banned for life from ever again playing at Notre Dame because their drum major conducted the band with a crucifix. Later, same result with Brigham Young where, during half-time their dancers, known as “Dollies” came out in wedding veils and the announcer said, “Marriage…a sacred vow between a man and a woman, and another woman, and another woman…” Well, you get the picture. Political commentary didn’t always go over well; BYU was not amused. There was a travel ban for a while, since the kids got drunk on their way home from an away game and literally tore up the bus.

Much of this was before my son’s era. He worked hard to learn his instrument and found a real social group within the ranks of bandmates. Their repertoire was contemporary. They were the opening act for The Who once. We went out twice to see them perform; once to a basketball game during his sophomore year, and to the “Big Game” (vs. UC Berkeley) his junior year, just before he left for Thanksgiving break. He was section leader by then and worn ragged with all the responsibilities, parties and pep rallies they had to perform at. We had to wake him from a stupor to get him to the flight home. They even perform at former band members weddings from time to time.

Between his junior and senior years, he stayed at Stanford to work in a physics lab (that being his major). A few friends were there that summer as well. At the end of the summer, the band moved from their old “band shak”, where instruments were stored and they rehearsed, a truly dreadful, filthy, run-down modular building, to a newly refurbished, million dollar building. The kids on campus worked for several days to move everything over. They were told the old Band Shak was coming down the next day. There was a long-standing tradition to destroy the old one. At one time the university president had even joyously joined in the destructive fun.

By this point, there was no faculty oversight of the band. The administration had given up trying to regulate them long ago. A fellow bandmate contacted David and a few other kids. She said she had permission from the person in charge of the band to demolish the old Band Shak. So, late at night, four kids went in with sledge hammers, paint, and food and REALLY messed it up, since they thought they had permission and because it would be bull-dozed the next day. They knocked out windows and walls, sprayed it with graffiti, smeared it with condiments. It had been unseemly before (my shoes had stuck to the floor when we had visited it a year earlier). Now it was the after-photo from Demolition Derby.

The next day the tow truck showed up. It turns out this was a RENTAL modular building and it wasn’t being torn down – it was being removed and returned! Palo Alto police and Stanford police were called. The four kids were questioned. They were stunned. These were all good kids, honors students, no complaints against them ever and they had not been drinking. They honestly thought they had permission to do this. (Turns out the supervisor, who was also a student, had winked, and said, “I can’t actually say it’s OK to do this, but don’t get caught”.)

The police didn’t press charges, but Stanford considered this a violation of their honors code and demanded to know who else had defaced the property throughout the years. The list grew a lot longer. They were hauled before the Honors Code Board, made up of faculty and students, but the meetings kept being put off, so this hung over David’s head for most of his senior year. He didn’t know if he would graduate or be suspended. The band was suspended for all of David’s senior year, though there was a brand new stadium. The dedication and games went on without the band. In March of his senior year, the ruling finally came down that there would be no punishment, since Stanford had tolerated this behavior for years without ever trying to rein in the behavior. After David graduated, the band was reinstated, but now with administrative oversight.

The whole episode soured David on his alma mater, leaving a permanent scar.

We spent the day before in Ogunquit, ME. I walked the beach with my dad and got a bit sunburnt. We had to drive 1,000 miles to get me from Huntington Woods, MI to Waltham, MA for the start of my freshman year at Brandeis University. It was September, 1970. Campuses across the US were in revolt. Mine was a closely screened class, since Brandeis had been the epicenter of the Student Information Strike Center and had gone out on strike the semester before when Nixon bombed Cambodia. But none of that was on my mind as we watched the Miss America Pageant in our little cottage the night before coming to campus (Phyllis George won).

One of my dad’s sisters lived in Worcester and some distant St. Louis cousin was doing graduate work at Brandeis, so Dad took them and friends of my brother’s (Rick had graduated a year earlier and was now in Israel, studying to become a rabbi) out for lunch at a nice Italian restaurant in Waltham before going to campus. By the time we got to Brandeis to check me in, my roommate, Carol Orshan from Canarsie, Brooklyn was already there. She expected me to wear overalls and have hay coming out of my hair. She didn’t know that Huntington Woods is 2 1/2 miles from the Detroit city limits. She was a tough cookie, very worldly. I learned to sleep nude from her. And she didn’t think twice about having guys stay over, even if I was in the room. At least she didn’t smoke (cigarettes) and we shared the same taste in pop music. But at this moment, Brandeis housing only had one key to the room and Carol already had it. So I had to stick with her as she came and went. Also, the heel to my favorite white sandals broke just as I entered the dorm. Not a good omen.

Brandeis was a young, disorganized school with no strong traditions. There weren’t upperclassmen to help unload the cars, and no real orientation. My dad brought in my luggage (no footlockers or boxes, just what I could pack in a few suitcases). It didn’t take me long to unpack, make my bed (I had signed up for sheets from the school laundry service that year). I felt like a lost puppy.

I knew a dear camp friend was also attending Brandeis: Christie Gunn. She was in the same quad in the dorm next door. I changed out of my peach pant suit into the “uniform”, blue jeans and tee shirt (see the photo with my parents taken on that first day – I think it was Sept. 13). I went next door and found Christie. My dad said my whole face just lit up. I had found my friend.

Christie was very self-assured, she had seen a lot of the world. We had known each other since being in the same cabin at camp in 1965 and been good friends since. Yet it was complete serendipity that we both wound up at Brandeis. I was SO glad to see her that day. We made plans to go up to North Quad to the Freshman Barbecue together, the four roommates.

At the appointed time, the four of us walked up the big hill, past the statue of Louis Brandeis, for whom the university is named, to the other quad that houses mostly freshman and has a large outdoor space in the center. A large party was ensuing and kids were awkwardly talking, trying to get to know one another. The four of us had our meals on our laps. Christie’s name tag read “Christie Gunn”. Some guy from Ridgewood, which had the reputation for being the hippie quad, was trying to pick me up. I was so insecure. I don’t think I was too interested in him, but I was trying to win points, so I said, “Her father is Hugh Hefner”. He didn’t believe me; he asked Christie. She shot me one of those “if looks could kill, you’d be dead” looks and responded that her father was Ed Gunn.

Christie’s mother divorced Ed Gunn about four months later and before our senior year, Christie took back the name Hefner, her father’s name, so that it would appear on her Phi Beta Kappa certificate. She has been Christie Hefner ever since, though she retired from Playboy more than seven years ago. And we are still friends.

Here we are almost 50 years later.

June, 2019, our 45th Brandeis reunion