Sam Lamott
Cindy on July 23rd, 2008
Lately I’ve been thinking about Sam Lamott, son of best-selling author Anne Lamott. I don’t know of many women who haven’t read Anne’s Traveling Mercies, her collection of candid essays on her long road to sobriety and conversion to Christianity. For many moms in my age group, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, was their introduction to a whole new literary genre: the tell-all “momoir.”
Sam (who’s now 18) is often at the center of Anne’s writings. We’ve all watched Sam grow up on the page, from his first smelly diaper to the brutal arguments over his driving privileges.
Legions of us are forever indebted to Anne for admitting aloud that motherhood isn’t one sweet series of Hallmark moments. Still, I can’t help but wonder how the Sam Lamotts of the world — kids who’ve literally grown up in print — really feel about all this. Is Sam scrutinized more closely because of his famous mother’s writings? Is he held to a different standard of behavior? Do his friends understand (or resent) his position? Is the rest of the world also secretly wondering how he’ll turn out? Is it really any of our business?
For years, I’ve wrestled with this issue on a much smaller scale. And I’m still conflicted. My own son, now 22, recently asked me to remove a post I’d written about him on my own blog last month. The post was innocent enough. And the photo of my son was flattering. The verbiage was confined to a very short paragraph about how grateful I am that my son helped me redesign my Web site, and how much I’ll miss him when he leaves the state for his new job.
Problem was, I used his name, he said. The large corporation that had just hired him out of college was in the process of doing an in-depth background check on him, he reminded me. Therefore, he did not want his name or his photo floating around on my blog, no matter how flattering. A little paranoid? I’d say so. But at the same time, I understood my son’s point of view and why he was worried.
We’d been around and through this before. Years before I began blogging, I wrote a weekly column for our local daily newspaper. My assignment was to write about my family life — which naturally included funny or poignant moments involving my son and his friends. No matter how careful I was, my son was hurt or humiliated more than once by what was published in my column. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.
But I haven’t. In fact, I’ve been at work on a memoir about preparing for the empty nest, and there’s no easy way to write it without mentioning my son’s first name throughout. Euphemisms like “my son” or “the kid” sound awkward in a longer work of nonfiction. For now, I’ve put the project on hold, despite the fact that an agent and a publisher are interested in it — and despite the fact that I believe my book would be of help to other women facing the empty nest transition.
So I deleted the offending post immediately. My son told me it would have been OK if I’d simply removed his name. But I wanted to prove to him that our relationship is far more important to me than a blog topic. I’m guessing he’ll outgrow this particular sensitivity, once he feels at home in his new job and settles into his new life on his own. But I’d sure love to talk to Sam about this. — Cindy La Ferle
–A shorter version of this post originally appeared on 50-SOMETHING MOMS Blog. Check the June Archives for “Sam Lamott” on the 50-SOMETHING MOMS site, and to read comments prompted by the original post.–
July 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
In your other post you mention a “blazing lack of boundaries”, and that is right on the mark in my opinion. Like you said, we struggle to teach our children appropriate boundaries and therefore we must respect them ourselves.
I believe the give and take that occurred between you and your son was important and thankfully you listened to what he was saying.
I’m concerned that young mothers are substituting the internet community for the real community and are engaging in some kind of disconnect.
There also seems to be a lot of disrespect under the guise of being clever and “snarky”.
Thanks for the thoughtful post and the link to the previous work. I can only hope that younger women will learn from your personal experience.
- Suzanne
July 26th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Thanks for your thoughts, Suzanne! This is something every blogger (and memoirist) struggles with — or should struggle with — so it really helps to have conversations about it.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Cindy, I had a similar situation. It’s hard being a mom of grown children sometimes! When my son got a new job in L.A. I posted it on my blog, because I was proud of him and it was a very cool agency that handles many famous writers. Later, I noticed that the part of the post with the name of his company had been removed. My son runs my website, so I figured he had removed it, but I wasn’t sure why. Turns out, he had signed a confidentiality agreement with the company and thought it best to remove their name from my post. I would never have thought that a company might goggle an employee, but these days I guess it’s routine. So when he got engaged recently, I posted a pic and short note about it, and then I sent him an email and asked if it was okay. It was. These days, I don’t take it for granted. I always ask. Thanks for making me feel less like the only mom who blogs about her kid and gets in trouble for it;-)
February 15th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Considering how open Lamott’s been in the past, I’m a little surprised she’s not written about all the problems her son has had. (Drugs, rehab, and now he’s a father.) Maybe if she’d not used his life for material, things might have been different.