Michael Lewis & Tabitha Soren
An interview with the author and his wife turns into couple's counseling.
by Ada Calhoun
May 29, 2009
Tabitha: He's already lying to you. He's been on the phone fifteen minutes. All-day childcare means I have fewer drudgerous tasks. In addition, I have a colleague and somebody who makes me feel like we're in it together. That doesn't happen to be Michael. But, that's okay.
Michael: Who?
Tabitha: Amy! She struggles over some of the same things that I do. So it makes me feel like I'm maybe not crazy when my nine-year-old is driving me up the wall or I feel like my six-year-old is lying. I have somebody to either commiserate with or celebrate with. Michael is a really energetic parent and he's engaged and gets involved in the things that he cares about, but I don't feel alienated because we have this other person in our family who is very engaged in some of the drudgerous stuff. And, for that matter, she really appreciates all of the stuff I do in the way that one might want a husband to appreciate . . .
"Don't be afraid to throw money on the problem."
Michael: [Laughs.]
Tabitha: I mean, she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. So I have to be grateful to him too, which is kind of a 1950s point of view. There's enough of my life that's very 2009 that I'm comfortable with some of it being 1950s.
So the moral for people who are struggling with their marriages is—
Tabitha: Buy your way out of the problem. Don't be afraid to throw money on the problem.
Michael: So let's get down to basic responsibilities. I cook breakfast for them every morning.
Tabitha: Like, elaborate breakfasts.
Michael: I tend to put them to bed if I'm home, if I'm in town, read books, sometimes at great length. I drive them to school once a week, twice a week, whatever I can fit into the schedule. Right now, the two girls are in a softball league and one of them has ten hours of softball practice and games a week. I'm her head coach. And the other one has two hours and every Saturday and I'm her assistant coach. So, when you pile all of that up, it ends up being twenty to twenty-five hours a week of one-on-one stuff. It's a lot of time. And it creates enormous pressure in my life. Because there's no way my work life is suited to parenting. My work life is essentially obsessive. I have to write books and books are obsessive things. There's a lot of stress and give-and-take in all of this. And suffering. I think that suffering is actually really good for the relationship with the kids. It's just got to be controlled, and to control it we have this thing called the nanny.
So if you can't afford Mary Poppins, the secret is to revel in the suffering? What's your advice for the poor?
Tabitha: Everyone's happier if they have choices, so you have to figure out a way to have some choice in your life for both partners.
Michael: I would say there was nothing as horrible as just having one infant home from the hospital, with just the two of us to take care of it. Those first three months of parenthood were absolutely traumatizing.
Are you worried about having the kids read the book?
Michael: I read parts in the making to them in their classrooms at school, and they got enormous pleasure out of it. Quinn picked it up and after about ninety seconds put it down and said, "I can't read this daddy, there are too many bad words." I think the truth is they will take no real interest in it until they're old enough to be more amused by it. I'm actually not going to write about them — I seriously doubt — ever again. I'm so glad that they have this little artifact from a period of their lives that normally gets completely forgotten and washed away.
Tabitha: Undoubtedly our actions as parents over time will put them into therapy as adults, but I don't think that this book will be the main reason.
©2009 Babble Media
About the Author
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Ada Calhoun was Babble's founding editor-in-chief. She has been a theater critic at New York magazine, an AOL News blogger and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review. She has written for Time, Salon.com and The New York Times Arts & Leisure. Her first book, Instinctive Parenting, will be published by Simon Spotlight in 2010. Visit adacalhoun.com. |
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