Welcome back to Jonah Asks.

Well...I did it. I interviewed my Mom. Deep in my gut, I knew I needed to do this interview when I started this project...and I waited nine months and 27 episodes because I knew it would be complicated.

I love my mom. I appreciate what my mom did for my brother and I growing up. Our relationship has never been simple. Childhood was often tense and anxious and life was difficult for Mom. Teaching second grade and raising two young boys on her own was difficult. Mom balanced our home life with teaching and also being involved in our schools in Arlington and remaining involved in the school system where she taught, in Newton. A strong individual, Mom is now Grammy on Zoom, still doing aerobics (on Zoom these days) at 75 years-old, and still sorting through her endless boxes.

This interview was an important and cathartic one for me, and she thought it came out pretty well, though "a bit rambly." I reminded her it was a conversation, not an outline.

Topics we discuss:

*education

*teaching philosophy (focusing on individual traits in order to encourage and support learning of each student)

*asking for support (or not)

*routines

*writing

*childhood memories -- Washington DC suburbs in the 1940s and early 1950s

*Helen and Earl (mom's parents/my grandparents)

*maintaining joy, wonder and delight

*meeting my father in college

*getting married and divorced

*single-parenting

*choosing NOT to remarry

*the pleasure of sorting

*relationship conflict

*divorce and children: psychology

*family dynamics after divorce

*appreciations

***

Thanks for listening. I'm glad I did this interview. Sometimes the hardest things are the most necessary.

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https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jonahasks

Enjoy springtime!

Jonah