Raising Puther Beings

Little boy grows up and takes mom on dream date

I. There’s a First Time for Everything

I have been obsessed with the pop singer Charlie Puth since 2019, when I first heard an episode of the New York Times Popcast where the journalists Wesley Morris and Jia Tolentino were so effusive about Puth’s 2018 album, Voicenotes, that they kind of mutually creamed their pants when the producer played them the isolated baseline from the album’s sexiest song. Like when the writer Hanif Abdurraqib turned me on to Carly Rae Jepsen through his lyrical essays about her, I could not witness such admirable, articulate folks waxing on about something and continue to ignore that thing.

Like my literary heroes, I was gobsmacked by Puth’s wide-ranging vocals and clever, sexy, at times silly pop songs, which often weave in jazz and classical motifs in light-handed ways. I could forgive his shameless promotion of Lavazza coffee in his music videos (“Sad Boy Misses Girl While Drinking From Espresso Cup With Label Out”). I nerded out on his nerding out, which is really the center of his star power. I became a Puther, all on my own, without even the aide of a TikTok account.

So when I saw Puth was coming to town, I immediately bought tickets. I talked myself out of the $350 front row and went with some modest lawn spots. But I couldn’t find a single grown-up who was interested in going with me. He is not as famous as Taylor Swift, as edgy as Steve Lacy, as soulful as Leon Bridges. What was his demographic, really? As far as I could tell - Gen Zers, Jia, Wesley, and yours truly.

Then I had a crazy idea — why not invite my seven-year-old son? He had already proven, time and time again, that he could stay up incredibly late. He has tirelessly watched the Puth music video where he Risky-Business slides in his undies and uses a wooden kitchen spoon as a microphone, which is, imho, hard to get tired of.

The kid was delighted at the idea! His five-year-old sister grieved her youth, and vowed to avenge her honor at some later date, when she could stay awake after 9.

I had a Puth pal. It was on.

II. L.A. Girls

When we got home from camp and started to get ready for the concert, Max changed into his suit. He clearly understood what was at stake here, and the kind of game that needed to be broughten. I put on my own suit, which I get to tell people is “from” Italy but I’m pretty sure was made in China. When we showed up, twenty minutes before the doors opened, to the UC Berkeley Greek Theater, it was clear that we were going to be fashion icons.

When I first moved from L.A.—where everyone at CVS at 2am looks like they are on their way to an important audition—to the Bay Area—where most people seem to view clothing as an inconvenience of modern life—I felt out of place. I could not believe that women were in hoodies at the bar. Also, why did they have their bikes, like, with them at all times? Sometimes people didn’t even bother to take off their helmets. It was horrifying.

I acquiesced, got rid of my pumps. But motherhood, and the land of low-fashion-aims that it relegated me to, has made me bold again. And no one is a better champion of my style risks that my children, who have yet to find everything I do disgusting and basically think of me as a princess who is also their servant.

As we entered the theater and settled in, we saw a few cowboy hats, a woman in gold lamé pants (“mama, LOOK!”) and a dude in a pretty rad Donkey Kong t-shirt, who enthusiastically pointed out that we had inadvertently dressed like the brothers from Dumb & Dumber.

But, though in addition to thousands of college students, the stadium was full of people of all ages (including a couple in their seventies and eighties who were cutesily discussing how cute Puth is) and walks of life, they were overwhelmingly and characteristically underdressed. We turned heads and raised eyebrows. Pretty much everyone who passed Max lit up with joy. He ran around the lawn gleefully, like a powder blue Tinkerbell. We were putting out so much positive energy, I had a premonition that something wonderful was going to happen to us.

III. No More Drama

I had tried to be cool about my expectations for the night, but once encouraged, I dreamed big. Max and I had been through quite a bit — I would equate my postpartum year with him to some kind of paralysis — I was weighed down by anxiety, my shock at becoming a mother, my fear that I wasn’t cut out for it. Then came the blow-up years, when he raged and hit and I raged and tried not to hit and in the end I held him while both of us cried. Of course, through all of it, we were often having a great time. Now that he was about to start second grade, it was more of the good lately, and only a little of the bad. We tackled math challenges together, we still snuggled. I knew this was probably as good as it gets, parenting-wise, that these were the golden years. I wanted to make the most of them — we’d earned it, hadn’t we? I wanted to prove to myself, and the world, that I was a fun mom. That my kid could hang. This concert was our reward, my reward.

Something wonderful DID happen! A stranger came up to us and offered us two tickets for actual seats, much lower than the spot on the lawn where we’d settled and eaten our hot dogs and the bag of cookies shaped like burgers I’d bought that afternoon at the Japanese snack shop. But Max didn’t want to go. I could feel myself having an inner hissy fit. Before the opener began, we went and tried out the seats. But where I am constantly searching for one more thing, angling for extras, Max likes to keep things simple. He wanted the lawn. I wanted to scream.

In his not annoying or guilt-inducing, actually helpful parenting book, Raising Human Beings, Ross Greene says:

“Let’s begin by thinking about the most crucial task of your child’s development: he needs to figure out who he is—his skills, preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals, and direction—and get comfortable with it, and then pursue and live a life that is congruent with it. As a parent, you have a similar task: you, too, need to figure out who your child is, get comfortable with it, and then help him live a life that is congruent with it. Of course, you also want to have influence. You want your kid to benefit from your experience, wisdom, and values…”

The balance between these things is hard, Greene admits, and most conflict between children and parents happens when it’s out of wack. Appreciating my low-key child, who of course joins with me on many extras (see powder blue suit), is not always easy. I have the wisdom that Charlie Puth from the lawn is not the same as Charlie Puth from the seats. He just doesn’t want change.

IV. BOY

Eventually, he agreed to ‘try out’ the seats after the opening act. We settled ourselves in, he grumpily and me tentatively triumphant, next to a young man with UC Berkeley Business School branded sunglasses, who I immediately judged as a potential douchebag. He was not only not a douchebag, but, after I asked if he would watch Max while I went pee, and he enthusiastically agreed, he told me what I great kid I had. He introduced us to his parents and brother and sister-in-law, all in town for the concert. He was maybe the sweetest person in the entire universe—-a younger, venture-capital oriented Mark Ruffalo.

Max had spotted a guy, leaning with a crutch against the side of the stage, who looked exactly like Charlie Puth. We wondered, was he a stunt double? His brother? The real Charlie, readying himself to toss off the crutch, jump on the stage, and blow our fucking minds??? We named him Parlie Chuth, and shared our binoculars with our neighbor so he, too, could witness this incredible observation. He passed the binoculars down to his parents, pulled up a picture of the real Charlie Puth for his mom, so she could see the resemblance, and apologized when she wasn’t as amazed as the rest of us.

I don’t know what terrifies me more, raising my girl, or raising my boy. Truly, the world is just a scary place for everyone. But it’s also tender. It’s got people in it who give things away that could bring someone else joy, who meet a strange seven-year-old and are genuinely interested in them, even though society expects literally nothing from a man in his twenties towards a child. How do you raise a boy as thoughtful as Business School Sunglasses? What if my son’s “skills, preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals, and direction” are to be thoughtless? What will my influence mean, then?

V. One Call Away

The concert was tremendous. There were sing-alongs, in-seat dances, personal reveals, costume changes. Max fell asleep, his head in my lap, at the second encore. It was my least favorite Charlie Puth song, which I learned with some relief he did not write himself. It’s from back when he gelled his hair back, before he let his curls go, before he talked publicly about struggles with anxiety. I wondered if Charlie Puth’s mom had heard it and thought “you’re not really being congruent with yourself.” But of course, watching Charlie stand at his upright piano, in his little tank top, contorting his mouth like it was its own performer, thousands of fans singing along, I fell under the song’s saccharine spell. I rubbed Max’s hair and smiled at my neighbors and thought, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Would Max remember this night, like really remember, not just in pictures, but in his bones? When would he tire of sharing public joy with his mother? In twenty years, would he show me around some foreign city with the generosity of Business School Sunglasses, patiently explaining things to me about a culture that I would never understand? What would the world be like then? Would it allow for the pleasure of a night like this?

I started to carry Max back to the car, but found he had gotten too heavy. He walked, with my jacket around his shoulders, like the final scene of Big, my little boy who can read and calculate five-factorial and show another child how to play Exploding Kittens and calm himself down, sometimes, all by himself.

We found the last burger cookie, at the bottom of the bag, and I let him have it.

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One More Thing:

I had the honor of being featured in two fabulous newsletters last week, Nancy Reddy’s Write More, Be Less Careful and Garrett Bucks’ The White Pages.

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For Nancy, I was interviewed as part of a wonderful series she’s doing on caregivers and creative practice. For Garrett, I wrote a guest essay about the movie Dirty Dancing and how Jews in America experience whiteness. Both of these newsletters are great reads, even when I’m not involved. Check them out!