Have I Gone From Lorelai to Emily?

Disclaimer: If you have never watched Gilmore Girls this post may be unrelatable.  Also, if you have never watched it, you have no idea what you are missing, especially if you are a mother...or a daughter.  Maybe this will all be relatable regardless.  Carry on!

Last night after searching the vast wasteland of viewing options on television I sought refuge on my computer and resorted to a long ago and far away happy place.  I started watching Gilmore Girls from episode 1/season 1.  I can't remember the last, or even the first, time I saw the very beginning of Gilmore Girls.  The show began in the year 2000 and I am pretty sure we did not watch it from the beginning as we were far too involved with kids, sports and keeping our heads above water.  It was way too cool for us then.  I can guess that I/we started watching during the fall of 2003, aka the fall of our discontent.  We had two children in college and the youngest just beginning high school, TJ had moved to Houston to start his new job and I stayed behind to sell the house with Kelly who was in her first semester of high school.  It was a year of transitions.  Watching a series about a single mother and a high school aged daughter was right up our alley.  Kelly and I started a tradition that lasted all through her high school years, much to TJ's dismay, of watching Gilmore Girls together.  

While Kelly and I have nowhere near the rapid fire witty speech patterns that Lorelai and Rory shared we, or at least I hoped we, had a relationship that was similarly as close as theirs.  Even though at the time, I was a few years older than Lorelai, I related to her character in many ways.  I had always wanted to have that close relationship with my daughters, and still be able to parent them properly.  It is a fine balance not easily achieved or maintained.  

The relationship between Lorelai and her mother, Emily, was complicated.  I had a much better relationship with my mother, maybe because I did not have a child at 16 (as Lorelai did), or maybe because I was not as independent and rebellious as Lorelai or maybe because I just had a good mother!  I had a bit of trouble relating to Emily when we first began watching the show.  She just seemed to be so inflexible, snobby and manipulative. 

 

Fast forward 17 years.  Unfortunately, I am closer now to the age Emily was when the show filmed than to Lorelai.   Re-watching the show from the other side of 60 is a lot different than it was in my 40's.  While I still love the relationship between Rory and Lorelai, I found myself last night having a bit more of a sympathetic view of Emily.  I did not appreciate her perspective 17 years ago when I had no grandchildren.  Having grandchildren gives you one more layer of perspective in this world.  As a child you can only see through a child's eyes.  As a parent you have a parent's perspective and can also hopefully remember what it was like to be a child.  As a grandparent you get one more layer having parented people who are now parenting.  

No doubt when I was a child I said things like, "When I have kid I will never make them __________."  Inevitably I had to eat some of those words when I had my own children.  There are also things I said as a parent or parent-to-be to the tune of, "My kids will never do that!"  and as we all know those are some of the most frequently eaten words of parents!  Parenting is a humbling job.  I just never gave Emily Gilmore much love all those years ago.  Last night, after 6...episodes, I saw her in a different light.  Let me share one of the "aha" moments.

Rory has to choose a sport at her new fancy private high school.  Emily suggests she go learn to golf with her grandfather at "the club" in an effort to learn a sport and broaden her horizons a bit.  "The Club" is a place Lorelai detests and sees as a place representing her parents rich, snobby existence and a place she never fit in or wanted to fit into.  Rory is open to the activity and so she and her grandfather go on their outing.  They have meaningful conversations, she enjoys the beauty of the outdoors, she eventually manages to hit the golf ball and so begins a very nice relationship between she and her grandfather.  Lorelai just does not "get it", feels a bit left out and also hates to admit that maybe her mother was right about something.  She eventually realizes just because she hated golf and "the club" and all it represented did not mean that her daughter would feel the same way.  

The episode made me think about how when we are younger, we (maybe just me) tend to discount ideas of older people/our parents as passe' or out of step with current thinking and how maybe they knew more than we gave them credit for.  Aside from feeling a bit more sympathetic to Emily (who is still no saint, but who is?), I realized my point of reference has shifted.  Much to my dismay I am no longer the fit, cute, energetic, young, fun mother.  I am the softer, slower, older, hopefully still fun daughter, mother and grandmother with a broader perspective.  Thank you Gilmore Girls!

 

Hindsight is 20/20

I remember back in 1985 when my husband bought our (his) first VHS! video camera.  It was about the size of a current microwave oven and probably heavier!  It was not coincidental that this purchase was made the same year our only son was born.  His birth was the main impetus for this purchase but also playing into the decision were the "advancement" of the technology and the balance in our checkbook.  Suffice it to say, once TJ had the video camera, all we saw for what seemed to be years was him following us around with a small microwave oven on his shoulder pointed in our general direction.  We enjoyed watching the videos over the years and the kids loved laughing at themselves on TV.

 We recorded many special family moments along with some regular days and then the random "black screen with sound" that happened when TJ would forget to take the lens cap off and leave the camera on....those are particularly exciting.  Technology has come a long way and at some point we no longer had the ability to view our old VHS tapes so we tediously converted some of them to DVDs.  This conversion process provided us with hours of entertainment combined with a few moments of 20/20 hindsight.

One of the most glaring moments was the day after our youngest child was born.  We have a video of me and the new baby just home from the hospital when the older three children are meeting their new sister.  Daddy is recording the whole thing.  New mommy is gently sitting on the sofa while daughter number two is holding the baby and daughter number one is petting the baby's head.  Both girls are looking sweetly at their new sister and new mommy is watching attentively to make sure the baby is held properly.  In the background the only sound that can be heard is the voice of a little 3 1/2 year old boy saying, "Hey Dad....look at me, look at me!"....over and over and over!  I'll let you process this scene.

I am sure in the "moment"  I had no idea how displaced that little 3 1/2 year old boy was feeling.  Think about it...I just had a baby the day before!  What the heck was I doing home so soon anyway???  Secondly, I was coming home to three other children and a husband who relied heavily on me.  I was probably thinking, "Can I just go to bed for a while and rest?" or "HELP!" or " can you get him off the arm of the sofa and tell him to be quiet?".   

In hindsight, that little boy had been the focus...along with his sisters, of that video camera for the last three years.  He was used to doing flips on the sofa and having them be video worthy.  He could do almost anything and it would have been video worthy.  Suddenly this little baby comes in and steals his limelight.  It took me a while to catch on to this at the time, but boy it was glaringly obvious watching the video.  Hindsight...

There are several more videos in the following weeks that are focused on the newborn baby and they all include shots of a little boy balancing on the sofa arm, rocking on a bar stool, standing on one leg, jumping on the little trampoline or just running around in circles and always in the background you can hear, "Hey Dad....look at me!".   

I watch these videos now and wonder what other things did I miss because I was either not paying attention, busy putting out another fire, totally unaware of, or just too exhausted to notice?  My kids can probably shed more light than I'd like on this.  They can write about it in their books!

One more funny video I'll have to share, because it really gives some perspective on how crazy a house is with four children at times and how it can lead to bad decisions.  Picture this....Dad is taking a video of little baby girl who is lying on the kitchen counter.  The baby is crying.  The 3 1/2 year old brother is kneeling on a chair next to the counter in front of the crying baby with one arm on either side of the baby...I assume to keep her from falling to the ground when she rolls over for the first time!  Dad pans over to the kitchen sink and a pile of clean dishes and says "my accomplishment for the night". I think to myself ... "Wait!  You aren't watching the baby!  Go back to the baby!"  He goes back to the baby who is still crying and the little boy has a very worried look on his face...because the baby is lying on the counter and she's crying!  Dad tells him to talk to the baby.  Dad then pans the video to one of the older sisters who walks into the room.  Again I think...."THE BABY!!"  Whew, back to the crying baby still safe on the kitchen counter!  Sometime during the video Dad reveals that Mom is out taking a walk.  I think to myself, "I would have never left the house if I knew what was happening while I was out."  I guess what I never knew.. never hurt me...or the children apparently.   

I'm glad we took all those videos.  I hope my children can look back fondly on their childhoods and know that even though we may not have had 20/20 vision back then, we had 20/20 intentions.