The Proselytizer * and **

Last month my mother-in-law tried to convert me again.

MIL: How are you feeling?

Bourgeois Mom: Good, but tired. Quite often stressed out, actually.

MIL: You should take Prozac.

Bourgeois Mom: Well, thank you for your concern. I really think that my level of stress and anxiety is tied closely to the 6 hours of sleep I average per night and my juggling a job, kids and household responsibilities while still trying to have a life for myself that includes triathlon training. Plus, you know DS can be a bit challenging, and I worry about him and what the future holds for him.

MIL: DS should take Prozac.

Bourgeois Mom: Again, thank you. But, you know, we’ve seen a lot of professionals including The Expert at Yale, and, well, there’s no magic pill for autism right now. We tried some medication under pressure from the school a few years ago, but it didn’t seem to have a noticeable effect.

MIL: Well, there’s no need for the two of you to suffer so. I don’t understand why you won’t at least try the Prozac.

Bourgeois Mom: I wouldn’t really call what we’re experiencing here suffering. People who have lost limbs in a war suffer, I would project, but I haven’t actually been there. Children who are orphaned or sexually abused suffer, I imagine. Those who are dying of AIDS or cancer probably are suffering a great deal. I think we’re just living a life over here. ***

MIL: I’ve been on Prozac for ten years and I shit daisies every day.

Bourgeois Mom: Still not convinced.

*90% of this conversation took place in my head. The “You should take Prozac,” to the best of my recollection, was uttered verbatim. How do memoirists do it?

** What do you know? All my life I’ve been pronouncing proselytize with a “th.”

*** All right, I’m not Tom Cruise here. Psychiatric medications are necessary for many people. And they may have been life saving for her. But they are not the magic pill for all that ails us.

(Sorry about all the endnotes. At one point in my life I was a Ph.D. student.)