Stefan Kleinschuster Archives - Mothering in the Middle

Just Before Two Years/Six Months/Five Days and a Handful of Hours – Ago

by Stefan Kleinschuster

What do I do here, in Hollywood, with the V-Word? Backstory: (Before Kid) I remember scores of parents everywhere talking about their children. Sorry, that’s a lie. I don’t remember scores of parents saying anything. That would have required caring about what parents were saying, and I remember a decade or two, maybe four or so, when I didn’t much care what they said.

Apart from that, I do recall them asking things in plangent tones like, “‘What are we teaching our children about the world?” and other sayings that felt a good deal like whining at the time.

Back then – about two years, six months, five days and a handful of hours (that is, before Sophie was born) – I could not have cared less about what we were teaching our children. Especially, about the V-Word. No, get your minds out of the bedrooms. I meant Violence. It’s no big deal, right? Especially since it’s everywhere? […]

For Father’s Day: An Homage to My Child’s Mother

by Stefan Kleinschuster

So, I was taking one of our wonderful walks with my crying kid through this dreamy California neighborscape. Sophie had fallen and scraped her hands – something she wouldn’t even balk at had she been at the park or further away from Her. But here, and after the fateful events of ten minutes ago, she was focused, you could say, on a certain (female) person.

I doubted the morale of our trip in the first place. Ten minutes before we were leaving Her, and after Her sweet kisses and soft looks, my daughter did an award–winning impression of an eternal goodbye with tears that would make a winged Oscar Committee cry into their leather seats. Blue eyes rimmed in red, platinum hair being blown by the foul wind of her Departure with Daddy, she wailed like Winslet. […]

Slings and Arrows on the Playground (Or, How to Watch Your Kid Grow Up)

by Stefan Kleinschuster

I’ll tell you what’s difficult: not having a reaction when your kid (or other’s kids) fall down. On the one hand they say that falling down is part of life and, on the other, is the wild reaction when my or their kid takes a digger.

If it’s part of life, then why are we so crazy about reacting?

I know myself – the feeling of that tangy shock when a kid – any kid – especially your own kid, falls on their knees in the street, raking that tender, perfect skin on the asphalt. It’s all you can do to keep your hands from flying to your head and having some primordial sound come out of your mouth. It’s nearly unbearable.

Barefoot or shod, that is the question. Barefoot eliminates the extra possibility of a trip and fall. But those delicate little toes! Jabs, slivers, metal… either way something’s going to happen. […]