We Are What We Read Our Magazine Subscriptions Give Insights Into Our Identity

It arrives like clockwork each fall, toted home from school in children’s backpacks, its cheery cover letter announcing the annual school fund-raiser: “It’s Time to Order Those Magazines!”

The colorful brochure lists 800 titles from which to choose, and it all seems innocent enough. But between those pages - offering everything from Acoustic Guitar and ZD Internet Magazine - lurks my own personal identity crisis.

Because for me, ordering magazines is never a casual choice, not like choosing between kinds of Girl Scout cookies or deciding how many rolls of gift wrap to buy.

No, this fund-raiser I’ve twisted into some sort of bizarre soul-searching routine that goes directly to the heart of who I am and forces me to declare what I want and need from life.

Will it be “Six Sure-Fire Ways to Please Him in Bed” this year? Or “Pack That Lunch in Five Minutes Flat!”? How much hair and makeup advice can I stand? Should I aim to find my inner-spirit guide or improve my resting heart rate? And which magazine will tell me how to flirt with my daughter’s soccer coach without making a fool of myself?

I used to know who I was, and my magazine choices were easy.

Back then I was building a career, having babies, trying to hold together a marriage. And so I ordered Redbook and Essence, Parenting and Working Mother, and pored over their career advice, recipes and beauty tips at night while rocking the baby to sleep.

But my children grew, from toddlers to teens. And I wound up single, widowed at age 40 with three kids and no clue of how to construct a new life revolving around a set of new - and unknown - needs.

Suddenly, I realized I no longer cared that “Your Baby CAN Sleep Through the Night!” or needed to know about “Taming Those Terrible Twos.” And “Seven Secrets to Spice Up Your Marriage” felt like a slap in the face.

And so I started scanning newsstand racks, looking for clues as to who I’d become. But the mind-boggling array of choices only made me more confused.

I was too old for Mademoiselle, too poor for Vogue, too unhip for Cosmopolitan. Could I even find myself between the pages of a magazine, and would I recognize myself if I did?

After all, adjusting our collection of magazine companions means giving up one identity for another, breaking a tie with the past and redefining who you are - or declaring whom you want to be.

Like my friend Stephanie, who once hosted fabulous dinner parties in a dining room now crowded with toys and baby gear.

With this year’s magazine campaign, she let lapse her subscriptions to Sunset and Gourmet, acknowledging that that kind of life - spent leisurely contemplating dinner menus and fall planting schedules - is behind her.

With a 2-year-old and a baby on the way, what lies ahead are long years of Parents magazine, read in snatches between changing diapers, microwaving dinners and watching videos of “Thomas the Tank Engine.”

But she bought into a vision and ordered Family Fun as well. She would become one of those mothers we all imagine we’d be and spend hours with her children in creative camaraderie, making centerpieces out of pine cones and spray paint and holiday decorations out of coat hangers and glitter.

But reality intruded when the first issue arrived. How would she ever collect enough empty toilet-paper rolls in time to make those Thanksgiving pilgrim napkin rings?

A good mother would have been saving toilet-paper rolls for months, she thought. Now she had to confront her inadequacy - or start unwrapping every roll of toilet paper in the house.

She tossed the magazine aside, depressed at the realization that Family Fun was beyond her ken.

I’ve ordered - and given up on - magazines for dumber reasons than that. Like the time I subscribed to National Geographic because my kids’ homework required them to illustrate the alphabet with magazine pictures, and my magazine selection had little beyond advertisements of diapers, lipstick and baby food.

The magazines piled up on my bedside table, mocking my pretense and reminding me each night that I was not nearly as smart as I pretended to be. I was relieved when that subscription expired and I could stop feeling guilty about not reading it anymore.

For most of us, magazines exist on the periphery of our lives but fill a critical role nonetheless. Publishers know this, and competition among publications is growing, as they are increasingly tailored to court a niche audience.

There are a host of new magazines on technology - from Christian Computing to Internet World - and trends in fashion, fitness and finance are fueling start-up magazines at an astounding rate. Almost 1,000 new magazines were started last year alone.

You’d think that, among the thousands of magazines, we’d be able to find that certain one that reflects our individuality. But then, that would involve knowing exactly who we are. And therein lies the dilemma.

As for me … this year I’ve decided I’m Essence, Esquire and Christian Parenting Today, Columbia Journalism Review and Marie Claire. You figure it out.