There have been a lot of electrons spilled on various blogs this week about the article on Mothering in the Age of Anxiety.

And I find myself a little confused by the whole "alpha mom" phenomenon. Granted, I am a total outsider, as someone who doesn't have kids (and who, in youth group, regards it a success if I can get them to hear the lesson without them making faces at each other across the room). But I am a former kid, and I have to say a little about my childhood, I think, as an object-lesson.

I grew up in a fairly affluent community. Today, it would probably be called a "bedroom community," not exactly a suburb, more of an ex-urb, a place where people who didn't want to live in the city went. Generally, these people were the families of executives or that sort.

My father was a college professor and low-level administrator in those days. My mom had given up college teaching when I was born because she wanted to be the one to raise her kids. My dad worked long hours, and as the newest person in the department, he often taught evening classes. So my mom and I (and later, my mom, my brother, and I) were together a lot.

My mom was not an "alpha mom." Oh, the phenomenon was beginning when I was a kid. There were mothers - it mostly centered around perfection of the house in those days - there were mothers who had cleaning-ladies and who didn't allow their kids to take toys out of their bedrooms or playrooms. There was also the beginning of that competitiveness, the whole buying-cupcakes-from-the-nicest-grocery's-bakery thing.

My mom thought that was bunk. She baked the cupcakes that went to school with us on birthdays. Thinking back on some of the things she said, I realize now she had a pretty healthy contempt about a lot of the "society mothers." She went her own way. For one thing, she didn't have a cleaning lady. Part of it was, I think, my parents saw it as an unnecessary extravagance. And my mother is a pretty egalitarian person - I can't see her thinking it okay to pay someone else to deal with the messes her family made. (I tend to feel the same way: my mess is my mess, and it seems demeaning to pay another person to take care of it for me).

The house wasn't often white-glove clean. Now, don't get me wrong, it was never unhygienic. It's just, there was perhaps a bit more clutter and a bit more dust in the corners or on the bookshelves than Martha Stewart might approve of.

My mother tells me, in fact, when I was a very young child and just barely speaking in sentences, I saw her cleaning one day and asked her, "Who's coming?" (Generally, cleaning was reserved for when company was expected. Largely, I do it that way myself).

But - there's a tradeoff in everything. For every drawback, there's a benefit. Our house may not have been marine-clean, but it was happy. I remember my mom letting me bake cookies or even cakes at a fairly young age. It made a mess of the kitchen (I am still a messy cook) but she never complained. She let my brother and me bring home tadpoles, and turtles, and caterpillars, and other assorted life-forms. And she'd give us an old aquarium to house them in, or a glass jar with holes poked in the top. And a lot of the time, she let us keep them in the house. (She drew the line at turtles; I think she was more concerned that the cat would try to drink water out of the turtle's pail and get an intestinal parasite). I remember that my brother and I did lots of "art projects" - not all of them as homework for art class. There was always something that had been painted or glued or glittered drying somewhere, usually on the dining room table. She also let us set up with our toys and play - we had Lego bricks everywhere. Oh, we needed to pick them up occasionally, but she didn't stop us in the middle of a game and make us clean up. When we went out somewhere - like the doctor's office or to a restaurant - our parents would play "I Spy" or "the Alphabet Game" to keep us amused while we were waiting. They talked to us, not baby talk, real honest conversations. My mom or dad would answer my questions, or if they didn't know the answer, they'd try to find it out. (I remember my mom buying a book on spiders to try to answer one of my brother's questions once). I think that did a lot to encourage our intellectual development.

Books were also everywhere. We owned a lot of books, and we also made weekly (in the summer, sometimes, twice a week) trips to the local public library. I don't remember it, but my mother talks about being absolutely flabbergasted by something a woman said to me in the library - my mom would let me (and my brother) check out as many books as we could carry (and then, sometimes, some - my mom would wind up carrying the extras for us). Well, I had my big stack of books (I was a somewhat early reader, and progressed pretty fast, so I was reading books above my grade level). And a woman seeing me in line, said (and not in a gently joking manner, either): "Well, did you leave some books for the rest of us?" (My mom said she couldn't come up with a polite response to that on the spot; she was so surprised an adult would try to discourage a child's love of books in that way). Sometimes books got overdue, and I remember once being mortified and sad because I became ill and actually threw up on a library book (the kind children's librarian assured me she knew it wasn't my fault, and that they had a budget to replace damaged books).

Anyway. Look at the things I remember from my childhood: being allowed to play. Being allowed to make a mess. Going to the library. None of those are exactly high-pressure, high-cost situations. I guess what I'm saying is that what kids really need to grow up into well-adjusted adults (and for all the jokes I make about being "kind of neurotic," I am actually a pretty happy, mentally-healthy person, I think), is someone who loves them, who will give them a little freedom within limits, and who will let their imaginations roam. I didn't have a real scheduled childhood (I took gymnastics and drama, which I loved, and briefly took ballet, which I hated, so my mother let me drop it. Later on, there were clarinet or piano lessons. But most days I went home from school, did my homework, and had a bunch of free time before bed.). I didn't wear designer jeans (and yeah, I got some teasing in junior high about it. You know what? Didn't affect me that much in my adulthood, other than to make me shake my head in disbelief over the things 12 year olds think are important...). I didn't go to the Bahamas every Christmas break like some of my classmates, or go skiing. But I did learn how to bake bread, and how to grow a garden, and how to sew my own clothes. How to knit, and quilt, and crochet, and to make a book out of paper and cardboard. How to write my own stories and to keep my mind amused while waiting somewhere. I learned the joy of being in academia, and that learning is the best fun there is.

I got very different values, I think, than some of my classmates. What I learned from being my parents' kid were these things: be kind to people, even if they're different from you and you don't think you understand them. Don't let people tell you you can't do something just because you're female. Learning is good. Reading is good. Help out where you can. The most expensive things are not the most valuable. Buy a good but not lavish car, drive it until it's falling apart, and then buy a new one. Learn to do basic repairs on clothing and appliances so you don't have to run out and buy a new one if you lose a button or if a wire comes loose. Having a lot of money is not the ultimate goal in life. Be true to who you are, even if other people laugh at you. It's better to be right (in the moral sense) than to be popular. Knowing how to make stuff is good. You are a valuable person, simply because you are.

I don't know what the anxiety-moms will convey to their children. Probably a lot of the same values my more laid-back parents did. But I think my parents ultimately had more fun, and were less stressed, during our growing-up years. And my brother and I turned out pretty well, I think.