T A B L E_T A L K

Christmas and Chanukah: Who gets presents? How much do you spend? Discuss holiday giving in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Making the list
By Polly Shulman
Your kids might not admit it, but there's a lot to be said for a present whose batteries don't run out and that you can take anywhere
(12/08/98)

Jews for Jesus
By Danny Miller
For my Holy Spirit-possessed sixth-grade teacher, it wasn't enough to sing the songs for our school's Christmas parade, we had to feel them
(12/07/98)

Second Thoughts: Twinns
By Sallie Tisdale
Double your pleasure, double your funn: Create a fantasy version of your child that will stay cute and small long after your kid leaves home and dumps you
(12/03/98)

Kids just want to have fun
By Anne Morrow Sampson
Why do the toys I bought my kids to improve their hand-eye coordination and spatial dexterity just sit in the closet?
(12/02/98)

The men's room
By Diane Lore
There's no rest for parents weary of making the decision whether to send their kids into public bathrooms
(12/01/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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Imaginary friend
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I would find my daughter's make-believe companion heartwarming if my mother hadn't talked to imaginary people too.

BY ANDREA COOPER
My daughter's sister can turn herself into a tree. Her name is sometimes Sara Hannah and sometimes Olidia and sometimes, well, it's hard to say. She is a grown-up. She is 6 or 10. She lives in houses all over our Southern town. "It's that one," my daughter will say, pointing at a brick ranch with a dirt yard, or "that one," gesturing to a knock-off of Tara, with columns on the portico and magnolia blooms scenting the estate.

Sara Hannah Olidia's income seems to fluctuate, but this imaginary girl always greets 4-year-old Laurel with a twirl-you-around hug. She can offer expert consultation. "What's a penis?" I overheard Laurel ask in the bathroom. "It's like a stick," came the assured reply, in a voice that sounded like Laurel's but "was really my sister," Laurel explained afterwards.

Best of all, Laurel's sister has experience with virtually any frightening situation, from time-outs to tornadoes. When my husband was taken by ambulance in the middle of the night, my daughter and I rode behind, my tense odyssey accompanied by a back-seat soliloquy. "My sister was in a truck like that one time," I hear over my shoulder. "It had those big red numbers, I mean, letters, on the back and a bed inside and it was loud!" When Laurel saw her dad return home safely the next day, she couldn't wait to tell him what her sister said.

I would find this make-believe sibling nothing but heartwarming and developmentally appropriate if only my mother hadn't talked to imaginary people, too. I never heard Mom say their names, so I don't who they were -- age, sex, hobbies, nothing. I say "they," but I'm not sure if it was a crowd or one frequent companion.

My mother's monologues were more like the drone in a Gregorian chant, a continuous muttering, sort of a background hum to my childhood. If I asked her to look at my book report from school, she would fix her eyes on the page without seeing it. "Oh really? I know what you mean," she would say, eyes glassy as she slumped in her chair, its rust slipcover stylish for 1974. "Uh huh. Uh huh. He won't get away with it." She would hand the paper back to me, her lips still moving.

These discussions with the nonexistent started before I was born, when Mom was in her mid-20s and single. The story goes that my grandmother heard my mother alone and chatting in the living room. "Who are you talking to?" Grandma asked. My mother motioned to an empty velvet wing chair. "It's Dad. Can't you see him? He's right there," she answered. Her father had died in his sleep a week earlier at 59.

Family members tell me that exchange led to Mom's first stay in a psych unit. There is much I don't know about my mother's early life, and most relatives who would know have died or are reluctant to discuss it. For me, the family stories narrow to one stark question: What is the difference between the raving mother talking to her imaginary dad and the creative daughter talking to her imaginary sister? Where does inventiveness end and madness begin?

N E X T_ P A G E: They talk to me

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