As I turn 40 this month, I notice that several of my beloved childhood books, like Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, both by Judy Blume, turn 40 this year too. As I find myself reading Blume’s books to my daughter lately, I thought it would be fitting to revisit one of my favourites, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, through 2012 eyes, both as a parent of a daughter (and a son), and as a girl who can no longer deny she’s a grownup.
The 1970 classic tells the story of a grade 6 girl as she negotiates a family move from New York City to the suburbs, leaving behind her grandmother, her old friends, and soon (as she is on the cusp of puberty), her childhood. Margaret’s mom is a lapsed Christian and her father is a secular Jew, so Margaret deploys frequent private discussions with God to make sense of her own identity.
Judy Blume’s use of intermarriage as a plot device was prescient, as intermarriage rates were rising in North America. But Margaret’s maternal grandparents had disowned her mom for marrying a Jew. Perhaps because of this, Margaret’s parents present her background less as two heritages to be celebrated than as burdensome theological obligations to be shed, in the words of an old friend who describes his own Jewish identity this way. In today’s much more pluralist climate, Margaret’s parents’ world might seem outdated to some, at the same time that her own private spiritual quest feels entirely current.
There is much of the simple intimacy of 11-year old female friendships to mine, with summer sprinklers, friendship clubs, and kids who are not so over-programmed that they cannot spend afternoons just hanging out and talking.
I had recalled much in the book about periods and bras, and it’s hard to say that the fascination with the mixed distinction of having passed through puberty ever goes out of style. With each decade of age the contours of the questions and focus of the fascination simply shifts a few bodily inches vertically in some places and horizontally in others.
Of course, it’s easy to giggle at the antiquated feminine hygiene products depicted. (Subsequent editions have apparently replaced the “belts” that predated even me -- with adhesives.) But the most shocking part to my 2012 sensibilities was the scene of Margaret and her friends looking at an issue of Playboy, a magazine that the father of Margaret’s friend typically keeps in the family magazine rack. Eleven year olds looking at the naked breasts of an 18-year old girl-woman from pornography belonging to their dad, seems, well, unsavory. I hadn’t recalled that scene as I worked through the book with my daughter (who, luckily, thought they were reading a medical book) before I skipped ahead.
But Playboy in the early 1970s wasn’t what most pornography is today. Coming out of the fifties, many would have viewed reading Playboy as an outright act of social liberation. Neither was the old joke about reading Playboy for the articles entirely bogus. Both Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer were published in Playboy. Playboy wasn’t Bible comics (though with its share of sex and violence the Bible is a poor example, perhaps), but neither was it the kind of trashy and frequently violent porn that has replaced the tamer and more artistic erotica of the pre-digital age.
The final thing that strikes me today is how hetero-normative the book seems. Margaret and her friends concoct lists of boy crushes and attend parties dominated by boy-girl spin the bottle. Would a young lesbian or a gay male teen find a space for themselves in Judy’s world? Writing in the early seventies, Blume wouldn’t have likely considered the GLBTQ market. But there is so much timelessness to her stories that I almost wish she could slip in some more sexually pluralistic references alongside the updates of feminine hygiene products. I have tweeted Blume on the topic. Maybe an idea will be sparked; who knows?
Unlike much of what passes for children’s lit these days (series like Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Blume doesn’t peddle in demeaning stereotypes and toxic patterns of interaction where power is wielded capriciously. Judy Blume’s characters argue, experience real and robust emotions, and are often plagued by self-doubt. But the fights are clearly between people who care deeply about each other, and the self-doubt is eroded as the characters grow and mature. In short, they are both human and humane.
Celebrating my fortieth in the real company of my own treasured relationships and in the imaginary company of Judy’s characters -- in all their tender complexity -- is not a bad way to usher in a new decade.
**A version of this appeared in The Ottawa Jewish Bulletin**
