Author has something to say about moms
by Don Mayhew / The Fresno Bee
September 6, 2006

A conversation with Jane Porter is a lot like reading one of her books. You start out thinking you're in for a little sunny banter, and before you know it, you're considering the modern state of feminism. If she were a chef, she'd serve broccoli truffles -- and you wouldn't even notice how good they are for you as you reached for another.

Porter, a Valley native who moved to the Seattle area a decade ago, will sign copies of her latest novel, "Flirting With Forty" (5 Spot, $12.99), at stores in Fresno and Visalia this week. It's a breezy read that, like "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" before it, details an island romance involving a middle-aged woman and a younger man. The book tackles not only divorce, but also the myriad ways mothers are pulled when heartbreak, duty and desire collide.

Like the book's narrator, Jackie Laurens, Porter is a mother of two (her sons are 11 and 7) who splits time between Seattle and Hawaii, where she's been "basking in paradise" while touring to support the book. She's also working on her next two projects, which delve into what's come to be known as the Mommy Wars.
 
Question: What the heck are Mommy Wars?

Answer: I began seeing some articles from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco magazine, and it dealt with what they called the Helicopter Parent, or the Alpha Mom -- these intense, competitive, educated moms who were now putting all of that energy they had taken into corporate America into the children's lives.

Question: Helicopter Parents and Alpha Moms?

Answer: They're overinvolved, always hovering, making sure everything's OK, fixing problems, directing. ... You have these Alpha Moms who are stronger, smarter, more capable, creating again a level of competition between moms.

Question: You have schools where the parents had a lottery to be a room parent. Parents had to pick numbers to go on field trips. Parents calling each other at home and lobbying behind the scenes to get on an auction committee or be a room parent. As a former teacher, does this worry you?

Answer:  Both my parents were teachers. I was raised in a very teacher-friendly home. You give teachers space. You support the teachers. You respect the teachers. It's great when parents are involved. But what I was hearing and what I was seeing was a level of involvement I could never match, nor would I want to try.  Part of the reason kids go to school, they learn to separate from their parents, they learn to handle problems themselves. It's a chance to take responsibility for themselves.  I don't have time to compete with other moms.

Question: You also write Harlequin romances.

Answer:  I love writing those books because of the archetypes, because of the conflict, the tension. It's maybe like watching a thriller at the movies versus watching an independent film or an arthouse film.
For me, writing the other books, writing "Flirting With Forty" and "The Frog Prince," let me get inside what it's like to be a woman.

Question:  It's not a pretty picture. In "Flirting With Forty," the narrator spends a lot of time torn between work, kids, social obligations and pursuing her own desires. Why is that so tricky?    
 
Answer:  If a man goes to work and leaves the kids, he doesn't feel like a bad dad for going to work. He knows it's accepted. This is what he does to make sure his family has a place to live and food to eat, and that's just a part of it.  For a lot of women, though, it doesn't take much in the way of the power of suggestion for her to feel like she's a bad woman when she's going to work. Instead of being told how amazing it is that you're doing what you're doing, I keep hearing these undercurrents of tension. ... "Are your kids going to be OK?" What a horrible, insidious thing to put in a woman's mind, that anything I'm doing, and any success I have, is at the expense of my children. At what point is enough enough? When have they volunteered enough? When have they gotten thin enough? When have they achieved enough? A lot of women haven't defined success for themselves.

Question: So perfectionism becomes a problem?

Answer:  If you have a job, if you have a goal to meet, and you meet it, you've done your job. But it's impossible with relationships to do anything perfectly. There's always not going to be anything perfect, because there are different people involved. It's impossible to make someone perfectly happy.

Question:  Are American media to blame for setting such high expectations?

Answer:  I'm not blaming the media. The media's a business. They're going to put out there what sells, what captures advertising dollars. But I don't think it's always a true reflection of who we are or what we could be. I don't want a bunch of businesspeople making decisions for me based on magazine subscriptions or circulation. I want to hear women who are struggling like I am. I want to hear how they do it and what they think.

Question:  Like your character in "Flirting With Forty," you're dating a surf instructor. Do you surf now?

Answer:  You mean, can I get up on the board? Growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, I didn't surf. I didn't know people who surfed. Some people would go over to Santa Cruz or somewhere.  But the fact that I'm doing something I never, ever thought I could do, and just being out on the water, is amazing. I'm not a beautiful surfer. I pretty much stand there on my longboard and cruise. But it's just fun.

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