On Parenting, Possibility and Patti Smith

I’m in love with Patti Smith. Trust me when I say I was not cool enough to love her in her heyday. But a chance grab of her Dream of Life DVD at the library and I was truly, deeply inspired by her. If a single person represents “authenticity” it may be her. I’m reading Just Kids, her phenomenal and critically praised memoir of her Mapplethorpe years. Ironic, given I live in Cincinnati. It isn’t enough that she’s an incredible visual artist, but her words sing off the pages.

My love for Patti is based on several things: her unabashed desire to live for art, damned starvation and criticism, her enthusiasm and optimism for life and her refusal to conform to society’s view of “female”. She comes from truly middle America roots so it isn’t entirely clear where she gets her joie de vivre, though her parents certainly exposed her to more art than the average parent. And, of course, Patti raised creative, interesting kids.

So maybe you don’t hope for this for your kids. Maybe you hope for less, but I don’t think many/most of us do.

Our parents show us the world’s possibilities, or the lack thereof. Insurance agent  begets agent, but actress begets actress, a writer-a musician. Why? I think it is less  genes than the day-to-day reality of what can be. If we can’t see or feel  it in the real world how can we make it true for ourselves? Starving artist, you’ll never make it in Hollywood, you have to be practical…all of these stop us from pursuing, successfully, what millions of others have. But because it isn’t modeled for us, we can’t dream it. How many doctors raise doctors, how many entrepreneurs raise entrepreneurs?

The lesson, the moral: Live as big as you can dream, not just for you but for your children. Help them see the possibilities of this one great life.