Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

Okay, I was totally shocked that this book wasn’t on endless hold - I mean, the movie just came out, and that usually means everyone requests the book. But, since it was actually available, I grabbed it. 

 

We listened to Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great last year, which was our first Blume. I mentioned that I didn’t really get into her as a kid - I think I maybe read Superfudge or something, but can’t be sure now. Back then, she was a “modern” author, but is a classic now. I think her books have aged quite well. 

 

In any case, my youngest is age 12 right now, and a bit of a late bloomer (she is fine with this - she’s more spice than sugar anyway…) so this seemed like a good time to try this book. The fact that my two teen boys were along for the ride wasn’t a problem, because, like me, my kids were raised with awareness of bodily functions. 

 

Back in 1970, when this book came out, it probably seemed edgy. Not primarily because of its frankness about menstruation and female puberty, but because Margaret is from a mixed-religion family, and her parents choose to let her decide if she wants to be religious or not. To my parents’ generation of Evangelicals, of course, this would have been beyond unthinkable - it would have been a dereliction of Christian duty to leave any method of religious compulsion unused. 

 

I was thinking about this as we listened to the book. As a kid, being raised religious seemed perfectly normal, and I never really asked the awkward question of “would I have different beliefs if I had been born into a family with a different religion?” (The answer to that, of course, is YES. The hazard of birth matters a lot when it comes to religion, which tends to cast some doubt on a number of dogmas, to put it mildly. Not least of which is “does that mean God loves white people more?”) 

 

As a kid, of course, I had no way of foretelling the future. I had no idea I would leave organized religion altogether at age 40. And I would not have predicted that, because I would not have predicted that the overwhelming majority of my religious tribe would vote for - and practically bow down and worship - an incredibly obvious antichrist, the Orange Messiah. I would not have predicted that racism and misogyny would turn out to be the true core values, which is why they follow the Orange Messiah. 

 

Following directly from that, then, was the fact that my kids got a really sour taste of religion, and don’t really have an interest in it now. (I literally warned about this, and got booted from our longtime church for my trouble.) The thing is, because I respect my children as moral agents, I do not wish to try to force anything on them. Which would backfire anyway, because….

 

Well, it backfired badly on my parents. For all the good stuff of my childhood, they still have not accepted that me and my family have zero interest in continuing in Authoritarian Fundamentalism, and even less in fighting on the side of racism, sexism, and hate in the scorched-earth culture wars. So, we haven’t seen each other in over three years. (Their choice, btw.) 

 

Oh, and back to the book on that note: as it turns out, Margaret’s mother hasn’t seen or spoken to her parents since she married a Jewish man. Her parents made their disapproval clear, thus choosing their bigotry over their own daughter. Near the end of the book, there is an attempt at some reconciliation, but when the grandparents try to force their fundamentalist Christianity on Margaret, she goes off on them. (And good for her - their behavior was completely inappropriate.) And it becomes pretty clear that there will be no reconciliation. And not just that, it seems clear that they had no interest in that - they just wanted one last shot at “saving” Margaret. 

 

This too reflects the last contact I had with my parents, when they tried to go behind my back to see my youngest. 

 

Poor Margaret, though. Her Jewish grandmother is nicer in general, but also pressures Margaret regarding religion. The grandparents in this book need to back the fuck off, or they will end up losing any good feelings Margaret might have had for them. 

 

So what else goes on in the book? Margaret starts by moving with her family to New Jersey and a suburban life. She has to make friends, and navigate puberty at the same time. Will she ever get a bust? Will she ever have her period? And getting along in middle school is not easy for anyone. (You couldn’t pay me enough to return to those days. No way.) 

 

And there is that oh-my-god-so-awkward scene at the party, with the kids playing mildly sexual games (kissing in the closet level.) There are a few things I missed out on being raise how I was, and avoiding this actually seems like a good thing. It seems a toxic brew of hormones mixed with the brutality of school status levels. No thanks. 

 

Perhaps what struck me most about this book - and it has been mentioned by many others over the decades - is the way Blume respects children. In contrast to the Fundie belief that children are the property of their parents, to be molded and shaped into whatever the Fundie leaders think they should be, Blume sees them as independent moral agents, able to think for themselves. She acknowledges that children find their own knowledge and come to their own conclusions - and these don’t always match that of their parents. 

 

This is a fundamentally different approach to parenting that I think is crucial to understand. Are children putty to be molded to suit the parents’ preferences? Or independent human beings to be discovered? Flowing from this is whether punishment is the main parenting technique, or nurturing. I am no expert on parenting, and I know I have made and continue to make mistakes. But really, as my kids have gotten older, I have come to appreciate how moral they are - not always the same way I am - but they truly care about morality and decency - and they think well about it. They have since very young ages too. Blume understands this, and respects children accordingly. 

 

By the way, this isn’t a “let your kids get away with everything” approach. Rather, consequences flow naturally from actions, and the necessary skills and tasks to live in a family (or socially with other humans) have a logic that kids can understand. “Because I said so” might work with a toddler who cannot understand why, but it sure as hell doesn’t work on tweens, let alone teens. Anyone who knows our family knows we have high expectations for what our kids do - they have to plan meals, cook, clean, and take care of their own laundry. And they have since they were little. But this isn’t “because I said so” but “because no family can function if only few people carry their own weight.” Kids get this too. 

 

A final thing that I found fascinating in this book is that while Margaret isn’t really sure about God, she still feels some sort of a connection. After the big breakdown over the grandparents’ misbehavior, she eventually reconciles with the Divine in some way. As a person who is religious, and has always felt some sort of connection that way, I get it. The frustration is usually with other humans who arrogate to themselves the right to “speak for god” to me. As if I were the kind of child that Fundies envision, too stupid or too full of sin or whatever to understand my own relationship to the Divine. They know, of course. Because the religious charlatans they follow told them so. 

 

If there is a core belief to Protestantism, it has to be that no human needs another human to mediate between them and God. We all have that connection, and no priest, pastor, leader, teacher, or anyone else is necessary. (Likewise, contrary to Fundie doctrine - promulgated by Gothard among others - males do not mediate for their wives or for their children. God does not speak to humankind through the penis.) 

 

So good for Margaret for owning her own spirituality. And also good for her parents for respecting her enough to let her do so without their interference - or panic. 

 

This was definitely an interesting book - the reasons for the controversy over it are obvious, but at its core is the profound truth that adolescents are people too - and deserve to be respected as such. 

 

The audiobook was read by Laura Hamilton, who captured the vulnerability of Margaret, and brought her character to life.