I was NPR\u2019s Pentagon correspondent then, and I was in Iraq to cover a U.S. Secretary of Defense visit. It was too dangerous for him to move around by car, even an armored vehicle within a motorcade, so the plan was to whisk the whole entourage, including the press pool, from appointment to appointment by helicopter. <\/p>\n
We were in the Green Zone, waiting to clamber into our Black Hawk when my cell phone rang. It was the school nurse, back at my then-four-year-old son\u2019s preschool in Washington, DC, calling to tell me that he was really sick and having trouble breathing. How quickly could I get there? I was trying to answer her when the line went dead. <\/p>\n
The Black Hawk lifted off. It was hours before I could get a call to find out if he was okay. I will never forget that moment, strapped in and gazing down over the snarled traffic of Baghdad, thinking \u2014 What am I doing? My son needs me, and I\u2019m thousands of miles away. On the flight home, I started writing what became my first novel. A few months later, I quit my job.<\/p>\n
Q: \u00a0You talk about being a sports parent, and this is a real highlight in our parenting journey for so many of us. Why do you think this is so meaningful and plays such an important role in our lives?<\/strong><\/p>\n Somewhere out there, my mother laughs at my being called a \u201csports parent.\u201d This is because I was so profoundly unsporty myself. In high school, I joined precisely one team. It was softball in 9th grade, and I never touched the ball once the entire season. That\u2019s no exaggeration; I struck out every time I came to bat. Every single time.<\/p>\n Yet somehow, my sons\u2019 inherited athletic genes that seem to have bypassed their father and me entirely, and they revel in playing multiple sports. I have learned to revel in being a soccer mom. I can explain the offside rule in my sleep. It\u2019s such a joy to watch them play. Partly that\u2019s the magic of sports: You don\u2019t care about a game or even know that it is happening until a friend drags you there, and suddenly you\u2019re screaming and whooping like your life depends on the outcome. As a parent, I wonder if it has to do with the fact that we love our kids, and we want to cheer them on, and it\u2019s not like you can show up in math or French class and yell, \u201cYou got this, buddy! Stay with it! Go!!!\u201d Whereas on the soccer or basketball or hockey sidelines\u2026different story.<\/p>\n Q: \u00a0You talk about \u201cembracing the silence\u201d as a technique recommended to beginning journalists. Space doesn\u2019t always need to be filled, and patience can yield revelations that wouldn\u2019t have come otherwise. Try this with teenagers, though; they\u2019ll keep you waiting\u2026forever. What suggestions do you have for getting teens to talk?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, in my experience \u201cembracing the silence\u201d does not work with teenagers. They\u2019re perfectly happy to jam their earbuds deeper into their ears and embrace silence themselves! One thing that does work, counter-intuitively, is having their friends around. My kids tend to be in good moods and chatter away when surrounded by their posse. <\/p>\n No, you won\u2019t get the one-on-one, thoughtful, loving communication you crave. But if I announce that I\u2019m ordering ten pizzas to the house, if they want to invite friends over to our kitchen after a game, I learn all kinds of things I wouldn\u2019t have known otherwise. Who asked who to prom, what summer jobs and camps everyone\u2019s planning, and why the Chem test was such a disaster? And then, the next day, you have a few specifics with which to strike up a conversation instead of the generic, \u201cSooo, how was your day?\u201d<\/p>\n Q: \u00a0In the book, you mention interviewing people differently because you are a mother and that being a mother impacts which stories you feel are worth telling. Which of your journalism skills could you bring to parenting, especially during the teenage years? If you have advice for asking open-ended questions, staying curious, and listening patiently, let us know!<\/strong><\/p>\n When I interview someone in a war zone, or after a hurricane blew their house down, or after they lost an election, I\u2019m not trying to solve their problem. I\u2019m just trying to listen \u2014 with curiosity and an open mind. I try to gather as many facts as I can about what happened. I try to ask in a sensitive way how they\u2019re feeling, what frightens them, what gives them hope, and what\u2019s on their mind. But again, it\u2019s not on me to solve the problem. <\/p>\n As my kids get older, I find myself trying to question them and listen to their answers in the same spirit. I\u2019m their mom, and sometimes they need me to wade in and find a solution. But the job is increasingly about ensuring they have the tools to solve their problems. My role is to listen, without trying to fix anything, without judgment \u2014 only love.<\/p>\n More Great Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n Stay-At-Home-Mom: My 20-Something Self Might Not Love Who I\u2019ve Become<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How do you balance a high-powered journalism career that takes you all over the globe, with family life with children and then later teens? We all know the answer to this, not easily. But few of us have the exciting and often confounding experience (your teen\u2019s soccer games are at the exact moment as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20122,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20119\/revisions\/20122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeschoolingblogs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/grownandflown.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/MLK-credit-Mike-Morgan-NPR-300x450.jpg\"\/)
Mary Louise Kelly, author and co-host of NPR All Things Considered (photo credit: Mike Morgan)<\/p>\n