Author: Mary Petrie

“History dead-ends Holly Avenue,” says Michael Koop. The preservation specialist at the Minnesota Historical Society is talking about the way in which a neoclassical giant, complete with Ionic columns and a massive pediment, rears up in the middle of the avenue, disrupting the neat street grid characteristic of St. Paul’s tony Historic Hill District. Location isn’t the only commanding feature of the building, which was built around 1908 as the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and this month becomes the new home of SteppingStone Theatre.

Constructed in an era when local church styles tended toward the Gothic, First Methodist made a statement from the start. It’s not a modest building—and, according to Paul Clifford Larson, that is precisely the point. “The church was built during a movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasized the importance of social ministry—what we call social justice today,” says Larson, who chairs the St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission. Because the church ministered to the larger community, not just its own congregation, the exterior was designed to reflect the humanistic ideals of the Classical era rather than a specific theology. Muted religious icons made it easier for people from all faiths to walk in without heresy; the church’s lone cross (now long gone) was effectively camouflaged within a circular frame. The building’s height—one must climb twelve feet of steps just to get to the front door—stemmed from the same impulse. The church leaders “weren’t looking for the highest hill, like the Cathedral,” explains Larson. Instead, he points out, their building “was always intended to be a community building. Methodists had been designing some churches with raised basements so you could enter directly into the garden-level meeting rooms” and thus avoid the sanctuary altogether.

The architectural firm that followed that design directive was Thori, Alban and Fischer. Although this partnership was short-lived, the men had individual influence throughout the state. Martin Thori and another partner, Diedrik Omeyer—“the mad Norwegians,” chuckles Larry Millett, the architectural historian who includes the church in his 2007 AIA Guide to the Twin Cities—are responsible for many of St. Paul’s intricately baubled Queen Anne residences; while Larson credits William Linley Alban with bringing a wave of neoclassical architecture to St. Paul. Alban was also dominant as the sole partner with academic training, graduating from the Chicago School of Architecture. “He was almost certainly the chief designer” of First Methodist, says Larson.

Like most churches, First Methodist changed along with the demographics of the neighborhood. In 1964, it became Saints Volodymyr and Olga Ukrainian Orthodox, and later, Grace Community, a church whose progressive theology eventually proved unpalatable to its African-American congregation. So much for the inclusiveness of the original church: Reverend Oliver White’s outspoken advocacy for gay rights left him with just eleven congregants in 2001, barely enough to fill a pew, let alone tithe for the staggering monthly utility bill.

By this time it would have been kind to call the place a fixer-upper; estimates for repairs topped a million dollars and the tiny congregation went looking for a savior. A highly original developer offered to raze it and build condominiums. Word hit the street—on the eve of a city council meeting that would decide the matter—and guerrilla war ensued. Within hours, neighbors gathered more than a hundred signatures, enough to block the church’s sale and demolition. Another developer proved more acceptable, with plans to rent the church to a charter school. The deal was inked, but then the school moved elsewhere. The developer, David Kabanuk, was stuck with a million-dollar treasure, a locally designated landmark, a leaking, cracking, teetering entry on the National Register of Historic Places.

Meanwhile, a bid by SteppingStone Theatre to buy the Highland Movie Theater had fallen through. The phone at the scrappy company—the only children’s theater in St. Paul, and a poor cousin, relatively speaking, to the Children’s Theatre Company across the river—started ringing. It was the Preservation Commission, it was former City Council Member Jerry Blakey, and it was dozens of the church’s neighbors. Thus wooed, SteppingStone bought the building. The city of St. Paul pitched in half a million. Corporate donors and foundations big and small, including Bush and McKnight, all wrote checks, as did hundreds of individual supporters. Ultimately, the $5.3 million gut rehab didn’t just restore the structure, it also revitalized the old church’s community spirit. Just as First Methodist did, SteppingStone’s artistic director Richard Hitchler plans to open the doors to the neighborhood, starting with a grand opening celebration December 1.

Today the theater is a beguiling blend of old and new: both stainless steel elevator and creaking staircase climb to the balcony. Repaired walls pop out in pleasant primary colors; the original maple woodwork is buffed and gleaming. And even though the 430-seat house is outfitted with plenty of technological gadgetry, there are stained-glass windows that are cracked and popping, awaiting repair. Like any old house, the to-do list never ends.

A Rebours is the St. Paul hot spot for A-list eaters, attracting the heavyweights of St. Paul politics, out-of-town talent like the cast of the Prairie Home Companion movie, and the usual crowd of the upwardly mobile and beautiful. The restaurant has every last sparkle you’d expect: tiled floors, high ceilings, gleaming wood, linen, and fresh flowers. But A Rebours’ brightest light isn’t savoring a drink: She’s waiting tables.

Sharone LeMieux is the restaurant’s weekend brunch manager and she commands attention—make that adoration—even while filling water glasses in standard black pants and a bow tie. A striking bottle blond pushing fifty, Sharone makes the most pedestrian task seem glamorous, even regal. She’s cut from the same hot-mama cloth as Cher and Madonna, but with more children: Sharone has six. Neighbors refer to her as the “Fabulous Sharone.” She doesn’t object.

Sharone doesn’t get dressed; she “costumes.” Lounging around the house for her means wearing sequined cowboy boots, chandelier earrings with matching bangles and beads, and a flattering mini-skirt. Her idea of sportswear is a straw hat and red polka-dot dress circa 1950, with a skirt wide enough to straddle a 1957 Western Flyer. Sharone drives a purple Mini Cooper convertible with her name on the plates. In a St. Paul neighborhood where more plebeian moms show up for playgroups with bleary eyes and stained sweatpants, Sharone floats in on perfume, expertly lipsticked. They eat Oreos. She brings truffles. She takes center stage. “Not all queens are gay,” she’ll say.

Sharone is also a jazz singer with a twenty-five-year track record of steady work. She has two CDs to her credit. After her shift at A Rebours, she frequently gigs at various lounges around town—ERTé, Downtowner Woodfire Grill, or Woodbury Broiler Bar. She also sings lead vocals for the Simpletones, a quartet that includes Star Tribune reporters Jackie Crosby and Bill McAuliffe, and goldsmith Bill Plattes. Still not content with her already-crowded resume, a few years ago Sharone enrolled in the St. Paul Police Academy. Up until her fourth child arrived, Sharone was a St. Paul Police Department crime prevention coordinator on the East Side. She undoubtedly wore blue beautifully. And way back when, she was a seamstress at Paisley Park, where she helped create stage props for the Prince of Chanhassen.

Sharone does everything full throttle. When her boys wanted to play baseball, Sharone gave a momentary shudder and then plunged into the Parkway Little League. She raked the field, managed the money, and showed up for every game in high heels and movie-star shades. When her sons turned their attention to football, she memorized the starting lineup at Notre Dame. On Super Bowl Sunday, she still hosts an annual party for thirty teenage boys. As they scramble outside for a sandlot scrimmage during halftime, Sharone sips champagne.

Mother’s Day? She slips into an evening gown, puts on the tiara, and pours martinis. Wedding anniversary? Sharone celebrates every month, with her husband, Star Tribune reporter Mike Kaszuba. Stomach flu? Might as well paint the living room, since you can’t leave the house—that’s what Sharone did last fall. When she was a Pannekoeken waitress and an elderly regular had cancer, Sharone didn’t just nurse him through chemo, she accompanied him on a pilgrimage to Ireland.

Despite the usual festive atmosphere, Sharone’s disciplined household makes neighbor children quake. Her younger girls, ages five and eight, are in bed by 7:30; they eat their veggies and ask their mother for permission to talk. Her teenage boys are required to have jobs but aren’t allowed to spend their money; nobody drives ’til they’re eighteen. The oldest daughter has a husband, house, and career, all by age twenty-four. The trick? “‘No’ is the most loving word you say to a child,” she says. —Mary Petrie

The past few years have seen an outpouring of books that deconstruct, describe, and frequently denounce contemporary maternity. Recent celebrated titles reveal much of the genre’s slant: Faulkner Fox’s Dispatches from a Not-So-Perfect Life: Or How I Learned to Love the House, the Man, the Child and the ever-quotable The Bitch in The House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage. These books involve serious self-scrutiny; each author agonizes over minutia and pounds her fists against Ideals, asking how (and why) she fell down this rabbit hole in the first place. Lighter versions include Confessions of a Slacker Mom by Muffy Mead-Ferro and the cottage industry of “hip mama” books by Ariel Gore. No agonizing here. Motherhood rocks, with an “I’m so cool I barely notice I’m breastfeeding” edge. These books offer lots of witty repartee (even between toddlers!) and thoughtful indifference to expectations that other memoirists deconstruct.

“Momoirs,” as they’re called, are not the only hot motherhood books. There’s also a plethora of more analytical tomes with quite shocking subtitles, like The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued, by Ann Crittenden, or The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women, by Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels. These take on issues of public policy and trace trends for clues about how contemporary “mothering” has come to be. The most recent book in this subgenre, Judith Warner’s Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, may be the most controversial.

The author sets herself up for some brouhaha by likening her work to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique; there’s no better way to defend the canonical than to fault the contender. Yet, despite all the buzz (the well-connected Warner got her book onto the covers of Newsweek and the New York Times Book Review; she’s been on Today, Nightline, and Fresh Air), the book’s main points are straightforward and, on the surface, not so startling.

Perfect Madness is fueled by the assumption that mothers are discontent; dissatisfaction and anxiety underlie our lives. Juxtaposing American mothers to our more contented French counterparts, Warner argues that we’re unhappy because of a gendered impetus for control and an American emphasis on individualism. The control axis of her argument hinges on interviews with the middle- to upper-middle-class women who inhabit Warner’s suburban Washington, D.C., milieu. Actually, the author admits, “it is very hard to write about the middle class in America without excessively focusing on the upper middle class.”

For this privileged, post-baby boom “generation of control freaks” that Warner describes, identity as a mother supersedes all else. These women learn sign language to communicate with the preverbal. They schedule “quality time” and family meetings; start children late in school so they have a leg up on the first-grade competition; and offer them a thoughtful mix of private lessons in sports, chess, and second languages. The testimonials Warner uses to build her argument about control—such as the series of expensive private tests and weeks of maternal despair resulting from a toddler’s delayed speech (eighteen months and mumbling!), or the woman who falls down an escalator in a frenzy to buy her kid Yu-Gi-Oh! cards—have been blood in the ocean for her critics.
On Slate, Ann Hulbert shook her finger: “just how representative a constituency is it, anyway?” In the Washington Post, Hanna Rosin was dismissive: “Over the past century the type—the privileged suburban mother, looking perfect but feeling hollow—has emerged every generation or so asking for understanding, for what she’s lost, for all the work she does.” Faulkner Fox fumes against Warner’s claim that “the ways of the upper middle class affect everybody.” They all cry: class bias!

They’re right. Warner’s pretty, rich prose is about pretty, rich, white women. Even her sighing apology that writing about working-class women was “beyond the scope” of her capabilities rings hollow. But this point is easy to seize upon, and it’s unfortunate the sharks have stopped there, sated.
An astute reader gives weight to Warner’s intent: to unpack a set of white, upper-middle-class ideals and anxieties that have become normative. Let’s pull out a historical example. Pre-Civil War Southern white women, with their tiny waists and alabaster skin, were the gold standard for femininity; these girls knew how to flutter and faint. From academic treatises to the trashy romance novel, we now know that this frail femininity was not only emulated by the poor (and dark), but also deemed a moral goal. Warner is not interested in Everywoman; she is intrigued by the Ideal.

And today’s gold standard doesn’t store the offspring at KinderCare, toil in a factory, or lunch at Mickey D’s—no, she’s the yoga-trim professional who can bring home the organic bacon with baby on hip and parenting tome in hand. When Warner is deconstructing these standard-bearers of control and perfection (and consumption), she is at her best. She compellingly links contemporary mothering to the sociopolitical dynamics of the 1980s, contending that the tightly controlled sexual/worker-bee body of the eighties has morphed into the tightly wound maternal body of the twenty-first century. She nails her argument.

Yet Warner’s ambitious theories haven’t registered with the kind of impact they warrant. Why? Mothering books are successful precisely because they portend to speak to Everywoman, and (surprise) the authors populating this genre have been the first to jump up and squeal about Warner’s elitism and narrow constituencies. Nervous, girls? Second, exposing the psychological economies of what is normal or pathological—while we’re living out these traits ourselves—is notoriously difficult. Unfortunately, Warner isn’t quite up to the task. Her theoretical voice is too muted, and so the testimonials of the privileged are allowed to sound like one big, inadequately framed whine.

But remember the other ace in the author’s hand, the American emphasis on individualism? Mothers on this continent are in a funk not just because we’re compelled to control the tiniest domestic detail (wheat or oat in Baby’s granola?), but because we’re oh, so utterly alone. Mom’s on her own at home: Dad may do diapering duty but (as throughout history) primary child-rearing responsibilities are women’s work. Mom’s also alone in the world: institutions (public and private) not only fail to support her, but work against her needs.

Warner does an admirable job of winding through politics and policy to show us how high the deck is stacked against mothers. Universal day care, accessible contraceptives, support for poor mothers, medical leaves, and other parachutes? Uh, sure, and sign me up for that luxury time-share on Jupiter, too. As long as we insist that Everywoman pull herself up by her bootstraps, especially if she doesn’t have boots, mothers will not be the beneficiaries of “institutions that can help us take care of our children so that we don’t have to do everything on our own.” With no help in sight, today’s mother can’t release her tight grip. There’s no net. Our impetus for control has sound sociological, as well as symbolic and psychological, grounding.

Warner tosses up her hands over this issue; it’s too late for this generation, she concedes. She doesn’t offer concrete recommendations for the future, either—just paints her picture of civic gloom. Privatization is being bandied about as the next great idea. If we reel in public programs, the upper class will simply pull those reins tighter and purchase what might have been, or used to be, the civic entitlement of all: education, health care, and access to art, athletics, music, and more. Just as we ne
ed greater systemic support for mothers, the institutions in place are being drained or dismantled.

In the end, Perfect Madness trips on its ambition. Warner takes on the task of deconstructing amorphous cultural concepts, and also treads the more pedestrian path of public policy. She doesn’t stretch far enough in either direction. Her greater successes can be found in her first concern, in her critique of today’s rigid maternal body. Warner may be less a daughter of Friedan than a sister of philosopher Susan Bordo, who tackled the normative female body in 1995 with Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Bordo’s concern with Western values of “self-mastery and self-transcendence” place female anxieties within a larger philosophical context of embodiment in general. Or: what does it mean to be human? After all, critics haven’t complained about Warner’s central assumption, that mothers are yearning for meaning and a better life. Isn’t that part and parcel of being alive, regardless of reproductive proclivities?

Ultimately, the significant contribution of Perfect Madness is that we close the book with a sense of civic urgency. If we need another book on mothering, let’s expand the second half of Warner’s analysis and put together a great big volume on public policy. If all goes well, the next spate of mothering books should have shocking subtitles like How Hedge Funds Finance Universal Day Care or A Blueprint For Vesting Mothers in Social Security. There we’d have some page-turners!