Tell Me More summary

Parents are problem-solvers. Before Claire or Georgia are halfway through explaining an issue, Kelly already has five ideas about what they should do to fix it. As kids grow up, however, they need to start figuring things out for themselves. Parents can help them do that by listening instead of presenting readymade answers.

That’s hard. As Kelly’s old college buddy and fellow parent Tracy puts it, it’s a bit like watching someone labor over a puzzle while the final piece is in your pocket. Parents hate watching their kids suffer, so of course they want to give them that missing piece. Tracy and Kelly were discussing this during a long car ride to a college reunion party when Georgia called, then aged eleven. It was a remarkable coincidence.

Kelly’s Irish-American parents both grew up in a devout Catholic community in 1940s Baltimore. As her father told her, faith was simple – you believed because everyone else did. The rest just fell into place. Folks ate fish on Fridays, went to mass and lived in the hope of receiving their ultimate reward in the afterlife. Doubt didn’t come into it.

But for Kelly, things were different. Religion was still a social glue, but it wasn’t a source of certainty about the nature of the universe. Church, for Kelly, was above all a sensory experience. She loved the taste of Communion, the smell of incense and the sound of the organ. And it was also the best place to meet boys!

Nothing comes as easily to children as saying no. As we develop, however, we lose the ability to effortlessly reject ideas or requests. Saying no feels lazy, rude, mean or stingy. In fact, the term hardly has a single positive association. But it’s a vital part of relationships. That’s something Kelly discovered in her late thirties.

As a kid, Kelly was notorious for her obstinacy. Once, her mother Mary refused to buy dozens of expensive hoagie sandwiches for a birthday party, ordering pizza instead. Kelly was furious. Hoping to force her mom’s hand, she declared that she didn’t like cheese – a food she positively adored. She didn’t back down, even after the ruse had failed. She didn’t eat a single piece of cheese for the next ten years!

There’s one member of the Corrigan household we haven’t met yet – Hershey the dog. Kelly got her after a friend told her it was a great way to teach kids about responsibility. However, Kelly ended up taking charge of Hershey’s training herself. It was a pretty bare-bones regimen, and Hershey’s poor behavior is a hair-trigger issue for Kelly. Why? Well, it’s a constant reminder of her own lack of discipline.

Hershey’s worst habit is drinking out of the toilet. That’s far from ideal at the best of times, but the Corrigans also happen to live in arid California. Being environmentally conscious, they try to save water when they can. This means only flushing their upstairs toilet every second time someone pees. Despite Kelly’s constant reminders, however, Claire and Georgia occasionally forget to flush after other uses, too.

Every Tuesday, Kelly takes a stroll through the hilly Oakland neighborhood of Piedmont with her friend Ariel, a psychotherapist whose kids attend the same school as Claire and Georgia. When Ariel’s daughter Ruby celebrated her bat mitzvah, a religious initiation ceremony for Jewish girls, she invited Kelly along.

It was a remarkable occasion. Aged just 13, Ruby was calmness personified as she recited Hebrew texts, told stories from the Old Testament and delivered a drash, or sermon, to the entire congregation. To get to that point, she’d spent years attending Hebrew school and one-on-one tutorials with her rabbi, and completed a major community project.