{"id":11801,"date":"2011-05-04T08:22:22","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T12:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=11801"},"modified":"2017-12-14T17:03:17","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T22:03:17","slug":"no-biking-in-the-house-without-a-helmet-by-melissa-fay-greene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/no-biking-in-the-house-without-a-helmet-by-melissa-fay-greene\/","title":{"rendered":"No Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene [in Christian Science Monitor]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"No<\/a>As her children grow, author Melissa Fay Greene decides to extend parenthood by adopting five more<\/strong><\/p>\n

You just know that a book\u2019s going to be good if you\u2019ve already guffawed and the type has started to blur (even though you\u2019re trying not to get overly emotional) when you\u2019ve barely even finished the introduction. Welcome to two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene<\/a>\u2019s latest title, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The premise, so understated, is mind-boggling: \u201cThis book is one woman\u2019s musings on the adventures of life with one man and many children.\u201d That “one man” is hubby Don Samuel, who preferred to put the children to bed practicing his closing arguments \u2013 as a criminal defense attorney, he spends his days with some of the seedier members of society \u2013 over reading the predictable \u201cBerenstain Bears\u201d stories.<\/p>\n

As for those \u201cmany children,\u201d four are of the \u201chomemade\u201d variety (with birth years ranging from 1981 to 1992), while five more are \u201cforeign-born\u201d and arrived school-aged over the course of another decade, up to the arrival of the last two in 2007. You can do the math: It\u2019s 2011, which means that Greene and Samuel are entering their fourth decade of parenting.<\/p>\n

As the first four \u2013 Molly, Seth, Lee, and Lily \u2013 grew, as children inevitably do, Greene and Samuel, who so loved \u201cthe cumbersome richness of life, with children underfoot,\u201d wanted nothing more than for the good times to continue. So, writes Greene, \u201cWhen the clock started to run down on the home team, we brought in ringers. We figured out how to stay in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 42, Greene made her \u201cfirst-ever appointment with a psychologist\u201d to help her decide whether to have another child. She concluded, without much input from the shrink who \u201cwanted to talk about every sort of unrelated thing,\u201d that the final answer was no.<\/p>\n

Then, when Greene was 45, a drugstore kit confirmed that she was pregnant. But she lost the pregnancy and was \u201covercome with grief and remorse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, at her hubby\u2019s suggestion, she \u201ctyped the word \u2018adoption\u2019 [into her computer] … stopped grieving and leaned forward, beguiled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given her journalist\u2019s background, Greene first pitched an article to The New Yorker<\/em> about medical issues related to adoption<\/a>; she \u201cdid not conceal [her] personal interest in the story.\u201d That research led Greene to Bulgaria in 1999 where she found the Greene\/Samuels\u2019 fifth child, originally called Christian: \u201cnot the perfect moniker for a nice Jewish boy,\u201d the older kids humorously noted, and then renamed him Jesse. Jesse is ethnically Romany; the Romany are also known as Gypsies because (not unlike the way that native Americans came to be erroneously called \u201cIndians\u201d) the Romany were thought to have originated in Egypt when in fact they emigrated from northwest India a thousand years ago.<\/p>\n

Jesse is 4. Greene solemnly realizes that he was born the year she miscarried.<\/p>\n

Back in\u00a0Atlanta\u00a0as a family of seven, life would never be the same. Postadoption life proved to be challenging at best. \u201cPost-adoption panic\u201d set in, complete with language barriers, bed-wetting, raging tantrums, separation anxieties, and more. With the family in upheaval, Greene sank into \u201cpost-adoption depression syndrome\u201d (something she\u2019d never even heard of), convinced she had \u201cwrecked my dearest treasure, my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miraculously, Greene recovers, her beloved family repairs, bonds, thrives … and inevitably grows to include another four children, all Ethiopian by birth. Helen arrives in 2002, age 5-1\/2. Fisseha, also known as Sol (his middle name, Solomon, shortened), is 10 when he joins the family in 2004. Birth-brothers Daniel and Yosef (\u201c\u2019You delivered our first seven children; I\u2019ll deliver these two,\u2019\u201d Samuel tells Greene when the family is finally given clearance to pick up the boys after almost a year delay) complete the family in 2007, ages 13 and 10.<\/p>\n

The sprawling family journey is not without its pitfalls. The children fight \u2013 even come to blows \u2013 give each other the silent treatment, lie on occasion, break rules, and figure out how to download porn on their cellphones. The teenage boys also easily bypass Net Nanny, then get caught charging up the cable bill with XXX-rated movies.<\/p>\n

In spite of everyday surprises, Greene somehow keeps her sanity … long enough to write this unforgettable family adventure. Third child Lee, by the way, is quite possibly the story\u2019s star.<\/p>\n

Ready with the Band-Aid box in hand, Greene is a culturally sensitive, boldly humane, never-crushing antidote to this year\u2019s Tiger Mother. With too many of today\u2019s parents caught in the blinding fog of overachievement, No Biking<\/em> is a revelatory must read. Join the Greene\/Samuel melee, filled with water balloons, newborn gerbils, dead chickens, spicy foods, baseball stats, frequent-flyer miles, endless extended family … and, most important, an unlimited supply of laughter and love.<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, May 5, 2011<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As her children grow, author Melissa Fay Greene decides to extend parenthood by adopting five more You just know that a book\u2019s going to be good if you\u2019ve already guffawed and the type has started to blur (even though you\u2019re trying not to get overly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,287,23,312,107,20,6535],"tags":[82,6608,148,59,10,1959,1960,170,44],"class_list":["post-11801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-african","category-european","category-jewish","category-memoir","category-nonfiction","category-repost","tag-adoption","tag-bookdragon","tag-christian-science-monitor","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-family","tag-melissa-fay-greene","tag-no-biking-in-the-house-without-a-helmet","tag-sibling-rivalry","tag-siblings"],"yoast_head":"\nNo Biking in the House Without a Helmet by Melissa Fay Greene [in Christian Science Monitor] - 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