Guilt by Motherhood

I don't know how, or if I will ever come to terms with the difference of parenting between men and women. I am not sure how to adequately describe to my husband how it feels to be the "primary", the one who always must be there for the kids. And if somehow I am not there I spent endless amounts of time arranging, rearranging and organizing so things run smoothly. Then when I am gone I still fret about how he's coping or how the kids are doing. Did I do this, did I do that....God it is painful.

Yes, I have been a single parent, and am lucky enough to share parenting with a very loving committed man. This however, doesn't completely alter the way I feel about the responsibility that is either placed on me by myself or by society in general, in regards to what my job as a mother is.

As I am writing this I am imagining my husband reading, wondering what it is he could do to make me feel less like this. That is the point I guess, I don't even know. All I want is to have the same ability to walk out the door to do what I need to do and not spend hours preparing for my departure, or feeling guilty enough not to go in the first place. I want what is granted to most fathers, comfort in the knowledge that their children are cared for, no matter what. That someone will be there for the doctors appointments, the orthodontist appointments, the early morning trips to school and the late pick-ups. That in the end, they don't really have to put too much thought into how these things happen.

I know, I am bitching even though I am lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom. This was a choice our family made, that worked for us. I am not ignoring the fact that there are plenty of families out there that don't have the chance to have one parent stay home with their children full time. Unfortunately there are still those families, where both parents work, yet it is still, for the most part left up to mom to ensure much of the children's care is organized (Dr.'s, ortho, lessons and such).

Is it the unwritten rule that women bare the larger load of domestic duties? I am certain there are exceptions to this, and there are those families who are able to equally disperse the responsibility of the everyday. Again here, my husband will cringe. I am not suggesting he is not as willing or does not try do as much as he can, it is just very different.

I am also lucky enough to share child rearing with an ex-spouse. This is a challenge on it's own. Resentment skyrockets with ever increasing speed, as the kids get older and require more juggling. Their father tends to become less and less available (depending on how convenient it is at any given moment), or he lives his life and thoughts of what the kids might need becomes secondary. I don't recall anyone asking me if it will work for me to drive (carting three or more children), to school before 8am, in rush hour traffic, with a vomiting toddler.

I know I am their mother, I don't have a moment to forget that, ever. Should I? Well no of course not, but what I want is for the other parent to feel the same pull I feel when it comes to the kids. What I want is a fair shake. What I want, is not to get phone calls two days after the children's father arrives, telling me he just needed a couple of days to do things before he sees them. I can't friggin' imagine being available to see my children, whom live with my ex-wife, and not do everything in my power to be there when I can.

As moms we are all too often made to believe that it is our duty to make sure every bit of care is overlooked by us. That without our go ahead, our family's world would fall apart. I know sometimes what I am driven most by is guilt. Guilt that the kids will somehow miss out, that they won't get what they need if I am not there for everything. Guilt that I should be able to do it all and more, and do it with a smile on my face to boot.

I am not sure I can live up to it all, that I am enough.

Go Forth and Fail Miserably

I always worry about my kids. What I lie. I sometimes (on a fairly sporadic basis) worry about my kids. Honestly, I'm not a worrier. Okay, here's my secret shame. Don't tell anyone. Promise? When my teenagers go out at night....I don't wait up. I work, or blog, or watch TV, or drink scotch (actually, there's no "or" about the scotch, I pretty much always do that), brush my teeth, and go to bed. I don't lie awake listening for the door, or toss and turn wondering if they're going to miss curfew (not giving them a curfew has actually made policing that little problem rather easy), or sit in a darkened room, in my house coat, tapping my fuzzy slippers. 

Nope. I cuddle up, and go straight to sleep (and let me here, again, extol the virtues of scotch). 

But there are times, even for a lackadaisical parent like me, when I worry sick. Will she pass the driver's test? Will (no, when) will Lauren (or Larry, we're an equal-opportunity family) break my son's heart? Will they get into the university they want to attend? Will they get hired? Will they get fired? Will they fall down drunk on the front step after a party and destroy $6000.00 of orthodontia? 

So, I think I do what most other semi-intelligent, moderately interested parents do....I press the secret button every parent has on the underside of the minivan dash and convert the family vehicle (which I never seem able to rid of the hamster-smell, what is that smell anyway?) into a save-my-kids command centre. 

From this post, I manage, juggle and herd the problem in to a little corner. I then pounce fiercely, capture the beastie, and slay the bastard. Virtually saving my darlings from pain and anguish. Oh, I'm amazing. You should  see me. It's stunning. 

But only recently, my bright and blazing super-mom emblem is starting to slip (and it has nothing to do with one boob being bigger than the other either, thankyouverymuch!) As they get older, and are more and more in the world without me, I'm becoming aware that they're scared. Not scared of people, or taking the bus, or even walking at night. They're scared of something much, much worse. They're scared of failure. 

I watch these smart, savvy, talented, attractive people that my children have become (I mean, just look at the gene pool!) stand on the sidelines. They're careful and cautious. They don't or won't risk anything. They conform, for the most part (wait, here is my other secret shame--well really I have approximately 79 secret shames, but let's just keep on message, shall we--from the time they were born I lived in fear that they'd grow up to be investment bankers or police officers or dentists. In short, I worried they'd grow up to be "The Man." Tattoos, piercings, and purple hair were cool with me, but the more I encouraged, the more they rebelled. It's all nice hair cuts, oxford shirts, and manners! Little buggers really know how to push my buttons! I know, you're thrilled!! Now you know how to raise your kids to be well-groomed, pierce only their ears, and only one time in each lobe, and restrict tattooing to tagging their Five-Star binders with washable markers). 

But why?! Why were these kids, my kids, who had nearly every advantage I could afford--a comfortable life, a good education, and parents who loved and encouraged their dreams, be afraid to fail, and thus, finally, afraid to try? 

Because of me. Because I was the lion-tamer, the trapeze net, the big, fat mat to cushion their falls. I never let them hit hard. I never let them feel the truth of their pain. I never let them experience their mistakes. I never let them fail. 

And in doing so, I've failed them. I've raised people afraid of pain. People who won't risk themselves because they've never learned that, though it's painful, they'll live through their failures. I saved them from themselves and have short-changed them. Now I have to step back and watch them wobble. As young adults facing a new life, they have to learn the lessons I should have allowed them to learn when they were four. It's not fair and I'm ashamed of myself (and they're angry at me for not doing what they've come to expect me to do). 

I thought I was doing my best for them. As a parent, watching your child suffer is possibly one of the hardest things we have to do. My solution was to prevent or soften that suffering, as much for them as for myself.  And I was wrong. We owe it to our children to allow them to experience the reality of their actions and their pain. How else can they become people aware of their potential, aware of what they can overcome, and what they can achieve? 

So, I've retired my super-mom outfit for good. No more saving them. No more slaying the beast. I have to give them the simple human dignity of truth. They can and will handle it. And they'll be stronger people for it. They'll be better people for it. 

I have a new motto now--Try stuff. Fail faster.

I know there are going to be bumps in the road, but frankly, I  think they'd rather live through those bumps than ever have to see my bumpy thighs in my spandex super-mom outfit again! For that, at least, they'll thank me, and, I suspect, so will our neighbors!

Out of Body Experience

We've all been there at one time or another. Walking behind our children, sitting laughing with them, kissing their new, ever growing, gigantic faces goodnight, and we have do a second take at how much they have changed. Holy hell, we ask ourselves, "when did this happen, when did they change, and grow up so fast?" Sometimes it is endless and never seems to move quite fast enough, but there are those rare moments...

I had one of those the other day, shopping of all places. All three of them laughing and playing together. The two big kids taking care of their little sister, chasing her around the store keeping her amused, the best they could.

As we left the store, my older daughter was carrying her baby sister and my son was chasing them, while his baby sister screamed with delight.

I watched them, laughing, playing and enjoying each other. It struck me that I had carried each of these people inside my body, grew them until they were able to join the real world. Wow! Sometimes I still feel like I am 18 and shouldn't have a daughter with boobs, a boy with zits and a toddler running around screaming her fool head off, but alas I do.

I am often tired, I complain a whole lot, but at the end of the day I am so glad I have them to share my life with. To stand outside myself here and there and marvel at what life has become, is truly unbelievable.

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES: Survivor - Motherhood

1. Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and three kids.
2. Each for six weeks.
3. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
4. There is no fast food.Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
5. Each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.
6. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.
7. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.
8. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.
9. He must also make cookies or cup cakes for a social function.
10. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
11. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
12. The men must shave their legs, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails manicured and eyebrows groomed.
13. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
14. They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.
15. They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7 :00 am.
16. A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.
17. The child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labour, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
18. The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if ... he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
19. IF the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

Disclaimer: OK. There are lots of Dads out there that can and do do this, but the reason this is funny for so many of us is that IT IS SO F*#*#*#*ing TRUE!

The Plan

My kids are driving me crazy, or as my darling Grandma used to say, before she'd slipped down the hall to take off her girdle, and secretly slide a mickey of Gammel Dansk out of a pair of sensible shoes at the back of her closet, "Oh! You kids! Shut up!! You're driving me to drink!!"

Now, say....I think Grandma might have been on to something. 

So, I've developed a strategy. I've decided to approach all parenting dilemmas with a three-fold plan:

One: When approached with whining pre-schoolers, or angry, angst- ridden teenagers (of which, insanely, I have both),  I will stop. That is, stop moving--a mother standing in the kitchen or laundry-room, or sitting on the toilet, is such a ubiquitous sight as to make her almost invisible. Especially if she's holding any implements coated in food remnants, filthy dirty socks turned inside-out, or as with seeming regularity in my case, mid-stream. If however, the invaders sense my presence (which I admit, may be more often than I like, them being equipped with highly developed mother-seeking radar), I'll move onto step two of the plan.

Two: After being spotted by the hordes, with the unfortunate failure of my camouflage,  I'll smile (to put them off their guard), then run. Admittedly, I'm not as fast as the little ticks, and when determined they have incredible stamina, but I hope that with the combination of the disarming smile, and the sudden movement (of which they are rather unfamiliar--sudden movements from their mother, I mean), the boogers will be unsure of what's happening, thus giving me a much needed head start. I plan to press my advantage, make a fast-break for any room with a lock, and once inside throw the bolt. Now, I haven't failed to account for the problem of having the nose-miners on one side of a door, and me, locked on the other--which most mother's have learned results in the pound-kick-pound-scream attack. So I've made a survey of all the rooms in our house with a lock, and discovered that each of those rooms also has a window. Always have an escape hatch (that's my motto). Oh, yes. Always have an escape hatch, and wear shoes. But, I sense, this tactic may be slightly flawed and prone to failure, as eventually, my Catholic guilt will force me home, where I suspect, the "Bestowers of the Stretch Marks" will be lying in wait. So, when forced to reenter my home, I will move on to step three. 

Three: Calmly and quietly, through the noise and din and renting of clothing, I'll make my way to the drink cupboard and pour myself a stiff one. Once imbibed, I will repeat the step until sufficiently lubricated as to make all complaining, whining, demanding, and shouting irrelevant (to me). At which point, I will proudly carry on the family tradition and bellow, "Oh! You kids! Shut up!! You're driving me to drink!" 

Get Your Bags and RUN!!

A couple of weeks ago I overheard a conversation (okay I was eavesdropping) between a couple of moms in the locker room. These moms must have been mid-fortyish, and seemed pretty with it from my limited standpoint. Then their conversation turned to the subject of going on vacation.

One of the women was telling the other that she was getting ready to go away somewhere warm, and her friend asked her if it was just she and her husband. To which she replied, as though she had cold water poured over her head, "of course not, we're taking the whole family. I just don't understand those people who want to be away from their kids. I personally love spending every waking, painful moment with mine" (okay I might be taking a few liberties here, but you get the tone).

I was so stunned I nearly made my eavesdropping known, but held back, due to the fact that I was hiding out in the washroom just to listen in. "Perfect Mom" then went on to say that since she and her husband "Poor Pitiful Guy" had children, they had never spent one night away from them....EVER. Are you kidding me? No dirty filthy hotel sex, EVER?? Geesh and I thought we were boring. Well, her reasoning was that if one wants to have children why would they need to be away from them? Her friend, just nodded her poor simple little head, and never challenged this notion. WOW!

Well let me tell you my friends I both NEED and WANT time away from my offspring. In fact when the chance arises I am giddy, tingly with excitement. I usually have an upset stomach and diarrhea due to the thrill, a few days prior to my launch.

I remember one year a friend and I had gone away, we decided to leave the night before our original planned departure, instead of leaving early the next morning. Well, we didn't arrive until very late, after midnight in fact. We grabbed out bags out of the car, checked into our room, and proceeded to crawl into our very own queen-sized beds, mowing down chips watching crap on t.v., giggling like we'd never been alone before. There is just something about the way that kind of freedom from your children, and your life makes you feel.

I cherish those times; when I can be a girl again, a fun, silly, sleeping late, staying up later kind of girl. We need those times away with friends and ourselves, to reconnect with who we once were. It feels good to know I can do this, that my loved ones support me doing it.

I love sitting cross legged on a bed reading trashy magazines, putting on make-up and acting as though I am a teenager again It feels bloody good to take care of just me for a few days here and there. To forget that someone needs something from me, and I can sit back and do nothing for a change.

Maybe there really are those "Perfect Moms" out there who never need or want time for themselves, away from their families, sadly, no, gladly I am not one of them. I look forward to the next parcel of time where I get to "pack my bags and run"!!

Reinventing Jane

We all know somewhere somehow, after becoming a mom you lose something. Parts of the "old" you become increasingly less visible. Till one day your standing in a store or in your own closet wondering how the hell you got here in the first place. You're not just a mom, a headless entity that does things, finds things, cooks, and cleans for other people (although it feels like it some days), you're still there. Deep down, in the dark recesses you are still the same girl you once were. Maybe not with the same body, hair, skin and all that crap, but you know who you were.

You're still you, but it is like someone took you apart, put the pieces of you into a jar, shook it up, dumped it all back out, reassembled the pieces, but somehow didn't quite manage to get it right. Kind of like the image of Humpty Dumpty being put back together by soldiers and horses, not pretty. And it certainly not like the adage, "it's you, only better".

Today this hit me....hard. I stopped at the mall to see if I could find something, anything to put on my not so perfect body. Something that would put that little spring back into my step, yeah whatever. I recently heard a talk about how women tend not to know their style "age" especially after having children.

It starts out with you in your twenties. You still aren't sure how to make the transition from a teen dresser to a young woman...well sadly that confusion, sticks like cellulite for many of us. Next you find yourself struggling to create some kind of image that fits who you thought you were, but now that you've kind of figured it out, you've aged ten years and you are on the fashion/identity hamster wheel from hell!! Fuck!!

Now I walk into stores with young, and I mean young girls giving you advice, or just trying to humour so you get the hell out of their hair, and stop shopping in their stores. Help I am stuck! Either I go straight for granny-ville, or back to my twenties, which just isn't cool. I don't know how to picture myself looking stylish and hip without looking like a cougar on the hunt. More often than not I end up leaning towards comfortable clothing that is more like lounge wear. I want to look hip, sophisticated, but lack the know how and frankly the confidence much of the time.

Ah, the joys of growing up and older, becoming a mom, and losing yourself. Why doesn't this transition come with some kind of hand book. There are "how to's" on everything from sex, to computers, to raising children. Why hasn't anyone told us how to tuck little bits of ourselves away so we can take them out later to find that they had aged beautifully like fine wine?

Remember stumbling through the awkwardness of our teens, wishing we could just grow up and become confident women? Oh ,how time plays us for fools. Here we are back at the starting block once again, only we have wrinkles, stretch marks, grey hair, saggy boobs and bums to go with it. Shopping used to be a joy now it's a chore, for the most part. Looking endlessly at racks of jeans and accessories makes my head spin, when it used to make me dizzy with excitement.

Well, I can't very well walk around naked, without putting everyone into therapy. Instead I have to put on my sweetest smile, drag my lumpy bum to the store, to put up with the sympathetic, cynical looks I get from the sales girls and reinvent myself yet again.

How did Jerry Scott and Jim Borgam get inside my life?

Okay, everymom, I want you to get together in small groups. You, Harriet, you join Tiffany's group. Tiffany! You will get along with all your group members! Okay, ladies. Go ahead. Discuss!

Can't write.....too tired.....zzzzzzz

I wanted to write about the frightening disconnection we parents have with our intuition. The teeth-chattering, knee-knocking fear we feel if we don't validate our parenting decisions, thoughts, feelings, bumblings, and triumphs with an expert. It could be our parents, or friends, or siblings, but mostly we don't feel secure unless we validate our choices with the Oprah's and Dr. Phils and Dr. Spocks. 

Sad. 

Millions of years of parenting evolution, so we can trust the talking heads. Maybe it's just me, but mostly, I can't help seeing their bulging eyes and listening to their stern warnings without imagining them surrounded by Wizard of Oz-type green fire. I just know, one day, some one's little dog is going to run out of Oprah's audience, pull back a curtain, and there will be a sad, chubby, lonely little man pulling her strings.

Just creeps me out.

So, yup, I was going to write a doozy of a post. With references, links, erudite dialog, jaw-dropping insights, and spectacular grammar. 

But, too tired. My four year old spent a sick Saturday night draining my will to live. If they were casting for a new zombie flick, possibly entitled, Day of the Sleepless Dead, I'd get the lead roll. There'd be no contest.  

Must go. Fingers tired. Eyes drooping. Drool pooling.......

"Motorbike"

(The Mother's version of Handlebars)



I can go to work on a motorbike, on a motorbike yah, on a motorbike, and I can wear my jeans with no underwear, no underwear, no underwear, and I can veto plans with my evil glare, my evil glare, yah, my evil glare. I can change the time with my microwave, with my microwave, with my microwave, yah and I can take out stains with my pampers wipes with my pampers wipes, yah with my pampers wipes. I can cook a meal with no vegetables, with no vegetables, no vegetables. I can read a book for one thousand times, for one thousand times, for one thousand times and I can still get looks from the grocery guy, from the grocery guy, yah from the grocery guy. I can handle pain without alcohol, without alcohol, without alcohol and I can make a lunch in ten seconds flat, in ten seconds flat, yah ten seconds flat. I can break stereotypes with my attitude with my attitude yah, with my attitude and I can go to work on a motorbike, a motorbike, yah on a motorbike.

Good Times!!

Well, no not really. I hate to be doom and gloom once again, but I am so bloody exhausted I probably shouldn't even drive today. Is it normal, or even okay to exist on about 4 hours of sleep a night? I don't think it's safe, or acceptable, but short of wearing ear defenders to bed, or sleeping on another floor of the house I don't know what to do.

My problem? A 20 month old with a set of lungs that could rival Pavarotti. I know, talking about an ingrown hair is more interesting than hearing about another sleepless night, among hundreds many of us have experienced (thousands, for those of us who can't seem to stop having children).

I just can't seem to get over it. Trying to get enough sleep, or at least enough to keep the bags under your eyes out of a medical journal, is like searching for he "Holy Grail", elusive at best.
My favorite is when someone, with only concern, says, "gosh you look so tired, everything okay?". How to answer? While all of the voices inside your head are screaming obscenities, you smile and always say that you're fine, you'll manage.

Unless of course it is a good friend, who will sit through your ranting, supportively, nodding her head, pouring you another glass of wine. All the while convincing you, you aren't really losing it. And a really, really good friend will never tell you that this will soon pass. That your precious little wonders will grow up and you'll look back and miss these days. I highly, highly doubt it. Instead they sit there with the same angry scowl on their face, telling you how much it sucks, and of course pour you yet another glass of wine.

I know the day will come when I will close my eyes, sleep through the night, only having to get up to pee, because my over worked bladder can't go a whole night anyway, but that day seems so far away. God I'll probably be in a nursing home by then. Geesh!!

How to Be a Cool Mom

I had this idea recently, that I would poll my children and their friends on what makes a cool mom. Now this isn't something one leaps into blind. I had to formulate the appropriate closed questions--opened-ended questions wouldn't suffice when addressing the loquacious junior high school drama-club set. I needed supporting visuals, superior reference materials, and ample edibles on hand to sustain the examination period (the test market being rather churlish and unwilling when not plied with bottomless nachos.)

The weight and value of this question required my full attention. I had to put aside all other pressing matters, like dinner, to give this burning subject the considerable time and thought it deserved. I mean, I was possibly assembling the most highly sought insights of a generation. My research could change the face of parenthood forever. I felt like a modern day Marie Curie, without the science background, or the ability to introduce a possible cure for a terrible plague to the human race, but, hey, I try to do my part.

So I rounded up my test market--three 14-year olds, two 17-year olds, a six-year old, a 20-year old, and a pre-schooler. The sample wasn't large, and the room for error was, but I'm a trooper, and an extraordinary extrapolator, so I pressed on. 

I posed a range of questions, including:

Who is the coolest pop culture mom--Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie, Marge Simpson, or Lorelei Gilmore?

Is it cool to share clothes with your mom?

Is it super-awesome when your mom flirts with your boyfriend/girlfriend?

Does your mom look better in a cropped belly-shirt or an ankle-length full-coverage muumuu?

Which is better, a strict mom who sets boundaries, curfews, and has introduced a complete ban on blue eye shadow? Or a wild mom who bootlegs booze for you and your friends and gives you a semi-annual bikini wax on the kitchen table?

Is it a good thing that your mom talks to you about sex? In microscopic detail? With handy props?

And finally, when going out with your mom, what is the feet-in-distance you must follow your mom x outfit-your-mom-is-wearing. In other words:  if my mom is wearing sweat pants and a maternity top, I walk_______feet behind her.

Well, when all was said and done (and let me tell you, I did not escape unscathed. I still have little pockmarks in the skin on my face from the spittle blasting from horrified mouths. As well, my ears continue to ring from the near dog-whistle-high screams of terror), the responses were fairly consistent (I' ll save you the technical jargon we pollsters use) but to be a cool mom you have to:

1. look like Angelina Jolie, 
   
2. speak only when spoken to, and
   
3. allow any and all teenagers in your vicinity to choose your clothes. 

Oh, and some of the respondents felt a cool mom always supplied a bedtime story, with the funny voices. However, those respondents were in the minority. 

But, by far, the most important revelation of what it takes to be a cool mom was, in the end, simple and intuitive. And, frankly, it's one I hesitate to share (after all, having done the work, one feels the overwhelming urge to keep explosive information like this to one's self). But for the sake of future mother-child relations, and in the long-sought pursuit of cool mother status I will share what I know. But brace yourselves. 

To be a cool mom, a really cool mom....

....just keep those nachos coming.

Where Have I Gone?

I'm disappearing. In fact, I'm nearly invisible now. 

There was a time when I was smart and beautiful and funny and charming and brave. But now, I'm not. Now, I'm someone's mom. Now, I'm a driver, a cleaner, a cook, a moderator, an occasional friend, and an absolute oppressor. 

How strange and sad it is to try to see myself through my children's eyes. To me, I'm still the wild-haired girl who danced all night, flirted mercilessly, drank gin, read, talked passionately about politics, laughed long and loud, loved sex, and chased dreams. They don't see that girl though. They laugh and blush at the idea she ever existed, and beg me not to tell their friends. They're reject her. And when they allow that, possibly, she was, they're ashamed. 

So, where have I gone? How long ago did I leave? 

Help, I'm Trapped!

I feel like standing in my front window with a hand scrawled sign saying"Help Me". You know, the kind kids used to make and hold up in car windows while travelling with parents in un-airconditioned cars, crammed together, seatbeltless, bored to the point of risking their poor unsuspecting innocent parents arrest. Obviously I have digressed terribly here.

What I guess I am trying to say, is there are days when I feel trapped, I mean trapped like a small helpless animal whose leg gets caught in one of those inhumane leg jaws. And I am ready to gnaw off my leg.

There is no simple way to describe how challenging it is to be stuck at home, when you have a sick child on hand and no means of escape. I'm not talking the kind of sick, where you are truly worried for your child's safety. I just mean, the kind of sick where even a trip to the grocery store is too much. I know, there are probably eye rolls and the likes, but sweet Jesus it can feel like an eternity.

Just when you think the snot has abated and you get ready to regain some ground, you're thrust back into the reality that at any moment you'll be imprisoned once again. Sleepless nights, stumbling around in a stupor most of the day, swilling black coffee, which only makes you jittery and short tempered. It's exhausting just thinking about it. Now do it, two or three weeks in a row.

For those of us with more than one child, it gets passed down the ranks pretty rapidly...and you hold your breath waiting for the next bout of illness to hit your house, steal your sleep, and rob you of your patience.

I am ashamed to say that I am not one of those lovely moms who fawn over their loved ones while they are at deaths door. Instead I am snappy and irritated. Annoyed that once again someone is passing their germs onto another unsuspecting family member, and it falls primarily on me, to be the caregiver, cleaner and nurse. I am pretty much trapped, yes that's right, trapped.

The Golden Age of Parenting

Oh good grief. Sometimes I just want to flee. Do you ever feel like you just want to slip out a side door and make a break for Mexico? Or maybe, in that dark, creepy corner of your basement, where the kids are too scared to venture, secretly develop the first angst-propelled jet pack? Better yet, harness the power of the teenage-eye-roll as an alternative combustible, fill the tank, and pull a Thelma and Louise?

I thought, ya know, I really thought, I was doing it right. I could justify, argue, and defend my parenting choices 'til large men wept (from boredom mostly). The backbone of my belief: treat people, especially children, with respect and dignity, and they will grow to be respectful, dignified people.

I abhorred and tossed my hair at the notion that a family should be anything other than a democracy. What kind of people, I would ask, would subjugate someone just because they could. That kind of abuse of power was reprehensible. I'm a modern, enlightened mother. I talk to my kids. I share with my kids. Their thoughts and feelings have as much value as mine. I thought. 

Well, some of my children are grown now. Big people. In fact, my oldest is the same age I was when he was born. And guess what? My utopian parenting didn't work. 

My kids aren't bad--though I hate that word. It's so filled with judgment. They are, for the most part, thoughtful, intelligent people. But our relationship isn't what I imagined. All those years of telling them that they had a say. All those years of allowing them to share in the decision making--from where to eat to which house to buy. All those years of discussing chore-sharing, and living expenses (which in our house is a pseudonym for allowance), and giving them a voice when they felt they were being oppressed. All those years, and all those things, backfired. 

What I thought, truly believed, would become mutual appreciation and respect, has turned into reverse discrimination. Now they feel they have the power to subjugate me. They demand and demean, and feel fully within their rights to do so. And when I attempt to put my feeble foot down, I get the heavy sighs, the "yeah, whatever's," and the near seizure-inducing eye rolls.  

I thought giving them a voice would empower them. I just didn't suspect that that voice I fought so hard to allow them would be used against me. 

It's probably too late to reverse my parenting style. I wonder if I could temporarily inhabit the body of a 1950s parent, and see what a swift kick in the ass might do. Probably not much for them, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better.

Cry

I remember the intense fear I felt the first time I saw my mother cry. I'm sure it wasn't the first time she had ever shed tears in front of us, it was just that I was old enough to really understand what that meant. The helplessness that ran through me, seeing the one person I thought was afraid of nothing, standing there looking so weak and defeated.

I don't see my mother anymore, it's been almost two years. Aside from one short sliver of time I had to see her. My aunt had just passed away, and my older sister was left to take care of everything else. It was guilt that made me go. I knew I would have to face my mother, looking haggard, tiny and old. It was that moment that made me think of the first time I remember seeing her cry.

This time, seeing her afraid and weakened it made me understand how human we are as moms and women. How must it have made her feel crying before us as small children. We are given the impossible task of trying to be the bravest, the strongest, in our children's eyes. We want nothing more, than for them to feel protected and safe through us. It is bloody terrifying to think that we are asked, expected to, by others and ourselves, to be brave and strong at all cost.

Now, I remember the first time my children saw me cry. The look of sadness and fear in their eyes, still makes my throat thick. I didn't want to make them feel helpless or sad, but they did. It wasn't my intention to let them see my weakness and fear, but they did.

I don't think I ever asked them how it made them feel. Maybe I'm just projecting what I felt as a child onto them, I don't know. I know my mother never asked. It's hard, but I don't think I want to know.

The one thing I do know is that I am sometimes weak, scared and sometimes I even feel defeated. In all of this I am slowly starting to accept that they can see this, they need to see it. My rawness, the reality of who I am. I am flawed, I am human and I make mistakes, it is scary, but it is the truth.

Your Imminence, May I Get Off My Knees Now?

When I reflect on my life, I'm amazed. Amazed about a couple of things: that I am an independent person; that I have, despite the odds, made good; that McDonald's has the audacity to continue to operate; and that 25 years of shaving your legs is exhausting. But the thing that stands out, that amazes me beyond anything else, is that I'm alive.

When I look back, frankly, I'm shocked. They say cats have 9 lives. If people have anywhere near that amount, I'm nearing my inevitable end. There was the time, when I was 5, that I was hit by a car and spent weeks in the hospital. The time, when I was 8 or 9, I was climbing trees with my brothers and slipped from the branch and dangled, probably, 30 feet above the ground, with my brothers crying, yelling at me to pull myself up, and terrified I would fall. The time, as I was traveling alone around Europe, that I was pulled into the bushes by a very horny, intent Greek man. The time I stood on a street saying goodbye to a young man I was particularly smitten with, when a bus turned the corner and nearly ran me down. The time I nearly bled to death on the delivery room table after one of my sons was born.

I look back at these, and other times when my life was in question, with a little awe and the calmness of having lived and survived. But it also makes me aware that death, Death, is imminent. It's my constant companion. It stalks me like a shadow. But whatever. I can deal with it. I've brushed the edge.

So how is it that I am paralyzed with fear that one of my kids will die. I know the routine. Born, grow, procreate, die. It's pretty simple. I just can't wrap my head around it when I think about my kids. Not only are they going to die, they could die any time. Today, while I'm typing. Tomorrow, when I'm holding their hands. It scares me to a depth I didn't know I had (and I'm not talking intellectual depth here either). This fear is a bottomless pit.

I struggle to understand how to let them go to live their lives when I feel like I need to wrap them up tight and hide them from Death. I have to protect them. I have to absorb the sometimes terrible shock of life. But, can I? Should I? Is it my right to do so? To live is to risk death. I know it myself.

How can they live if they can't die?

They can't. I know that. Intellectually I know that each one of my children will test death. And someday, maybe today, they will die. It will come sometime, though not a time of my choosing. I have to learn to understand that. I have to learn to take whatever I'm given, and learn to allow others, even my children, to have and own what they're given. I think, for me, it's the hardest lesson of parenting. It requires a faith I'm not sure I have.

"Have faith in God."

"Have faith in justice."

"Have faith in the Tao."

"Have faith, everything will be alright."

"Have faith in the circle of life."

It's impossibly hard for me to have faith. I'm frightened to my marrow that I'll lose one of my children. So every day I test my faith. Every day I inch toward trust. Every day my heart constricts, yet every day I open the door, and out they go. Into an uncertain world, and a more uncertain future. Do they deserve any less?

So I sit and write and think and silently pray to who ever will listen--God, Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, Krishna, Mary Poppins--my silent mantra and inner dialogue, "I'm going to die. I'm going to die. So are my children. So I must let them live."

Yet, my faith is weak, and still, I'm scared.

W.H. Auden said, "To choose what is difficult all one's days, as if it were easy, that is faith."

I think he must have understood parenting.

Good Morning, I Think

My youngest child is four. Thank God. She feeds herself, dresses herself, wipes her own bum (most days), and is, finally, night-trained. She's self-sufficient, and I'm glad. No. That's a lie. I'm over the bloody moon. 

Babies are sweet, and I love them. When my babies were babies I sometimes couldn't get enough of them. Touching them. Smelling them. Sometimes I wanted to be so close to them, I wanted to bite their chubby little thighs. But I never, ever got over the perpetual lack of sleep.

I always thought those women who stood around talking about how little Betsy or Jonathon slept through the night when they were six days (six seconds) old were full of shit. They were them same women who told me how much they loved every nauseous minute of being pregnant, and that giving birth was not a bloody, messy, dirty, sweaty 12 hours, but a spiritual event that transformed their lives. Oh fuck off. 

So when my children all reached that most glorious of milestones--sleeping through the night for the first time--it was always a sublimely joyous occasion. Though as I grew older and more confident as a mother, and with each subsequent child, that joyous occasion started to look a little different.

When my first child slept though the night, I woke in an absolute panic. How could this be!!!! Was he still breathing??!!! Had he, oh, please no God, had he died in his sleep? I practically flew from my bed to his room. I threw open the door and ran to his crib and picked him up. Poking, squeezing, listening and watching for his breath. He was fine, if a little shocked and groggy. After all, I had just woken him up. He started crying (go figure) and my day began. He didn't sleep through the night again soon. 

When my second child, a beautiful little girl, slept through the night for the first time. I again woke in a panic. But, I'm no dummy. I'd learned my lesson the first time. I quietly, though quickly, made my way to her room, tiptoed in, rested my hand on her little back to feel her breathing and tiptoed out. I, of course, didn't go back to sleep. The adrenalin ripping through my veins prevented that. Good God. Parenting is a perpetually stomach-clenching nightmare. I laid their wondering if there would ever be a time I wasn't in constant fear that something bad was going to happen to my children. Then she woke up. The screaming, snot-filled day was about to begin. My fear abated.

Then came my third child, and friend, let me tell you, I was tired! There's really no word in our language to express that absolute bone and soul weary feeling of motherhood. I was nursing her when she had her first all-night sleepfest. So I woke a pajama-soaked dripping mess. I was engorged, and it hurt like a bugger. I rolled over looked at the clock and realized what had happened. The entire night had gone by and I was still horizontal. I had an instant flash of panic, but I was drowningly exhausted. So I pulled the blankets up around my ears and thought, "Well, if she's dead there's nothing I can do about it now. I may as well get a little more sleep." And, well, I went back to sleep.

I did. I went back to sleep. And it felt good. Well, except for my boobs. But she made fast work of that when she woke up. 

I told that story once to a hallway full of pre-school moms. The response was shock, disgust, and horror. Everyone was silent. Talk about a mood-killer. 

But whaddya goin' do? Life is hard. Motherhood is harder. If you ask me, you should sleep. That's what you oughta do.  

Advice anyone?

Last night I sat down reread some of the older posts we've contributed and thought I wanted/needed to write something that would be interesting and valuable somehow. I sat and sat, waiting , but nothing earth-shattering came to me. So instead I decided to look at what other people/moms are talking about.



Immediately it occurred to me, by what I was reading, was that a lot of what was out there was basically self-help or better yet parenting-help advice. With titles like, "How To Be The Parent of Your Dreams", "Why Good Parents Have Bad Kids", and the likes. God, it's enough to make the most confident parent question what they are doing. I didn't come across anything that talked about the immense fear some of have about not being capable enough....although, by whose standards is this measured?



It is as though there is this long list of boxes to be ticked off when raising a child. The foods you introduce, when to introduce them to your child's diet, reactions he or she might have. When and how to get them to recite the alphabet. I have fallen so short here. And I have never been the mom who kept a food journal, writing down each and every item I tried to squeeze past my baby's stubborn little lips. Yet I remember other parents talking about what stage they were at in their child's food development (I really had to keep from saying, "you're freaking kidding me right?") But no, they weren't .



I don't mean to belittle or judge anyone who does any of these things, honestly, kudos to you for taking things so seriously. It just seemed impossible for me to do these things myself.



Now that I a mom for the third time, I chalk it up to having already been through it or just being too tired and often too overwhelmed, to make an effort to write down everything my child eats or does. Whatever it is, I still get pangs of guilt when I sit in a waiting room and magazine covers stare back at me with statements of how to do any number of things, things I know I probably don't do, will never do, by the book.



I don't think I will ever have enough experience to give anyone advice, the only thing I can offer is to do what you think is best, close your eyes, cross your fingers and hang on for dear life. It's a bumpy ride.

Helping Hands

There are those days when you wonder what the hell was going through your head, having more than one child. There is more laundry, dishes and crap laying around, then you know what to do with.

But then, there are those bright moments that make all of the nights you lay in bed worried, wondering if what you've done so far will be enough, worth it. Whether they will leave the safe confines of their home and the arms of their family will no longer hold them up, and they will be good people, loving people.

I had one of those bright moments the other day. It had been a really long week, probably only Tuesday, but if felt like a 10 day week. My oldest daughter had a project she had to complete, and she and a friend decided to come to our house to do it. They asked for help to the point where I thought to myself, I better be getting some grade 8 credit for this. Finally I had to step away because my frustration was mounting and I could feel my inner crazy getting ready to emerge and smash to whole project to bits (there was a very vivid picture of this running through my head). Funny how little things can push you to the brink.

As the girls struggled, glued, re glued, revamped and basically started over three times, my younger son became interested in what they were doing, and started to make some suggestions. Let me give you some back ground here, his sister wants to be the boss, always (a product of being raised my a single parent). Whether he is packing his backpack, brushing his teeth, she likes to tell him how to do it.

So for her to allow him to give her any advice was wild. Before I knew it he had stepped right in, making parts of the project from scratch, until it worked. He did it so lovingly and gently. I could only sit back and listen to their exchanges. The girls pushing him on with words of encouragement (well more like transparent sucking up), but he was smiling and loving it.

The next day I had to pick them up, and asked how things had gone. Apparently he had gotten so attached to the project he went to the girls class at lunch time to make sure it was all working, and tweaked is slightly for them.

It is wonderful to see kids, your own kids, doing this for each other.

But of course all good things must end, and yesterday they were back to their bickering selves, It was about nothing more than who always has to do more around here.....will it ever end? Probably not, but as long as I get a few of the other moments, all will be okay.

Murderer by momstheword

I am a murderer. If you do something to harm my child, I will seek you out, hunt you down and kill you.

Okay, I'm not really a murderer, but I could be.

Without hesitation or regret I could and would kill any human being that purposefully, physically harmed one of my children. I'm not talking a "push in the school yard" kinda thing; I'm talking the kind of horrible things only a Mother and Father can dream up in the deep, dark recesses of their minds once they bring these incredible beings into the world.

I know, I know--it's been said before....we have all felt it....but for me, it was an earth-shattering realization.

I was not a "baby person." My sister did all the babysitting and baby-holding when we were growing up; I just wanted to play with dogs and horses. On the rare occasion that I did babysit, it was only because I needed the money to pay for more horse riding lessons.

Age and marriage did little to change my level of enthusiasm for children. After all, I was a university grad, a DINK, and a Business Woman, traveling to exotic locales like Toronto and Montreal....most importantly, I finally had my very own horse and my very own dog. How could life be any sweeter?

And then we brought her home.

That evening, the agony of what we had allowed into our home, and more importantly, into our hearts was too much to bear.

"What were we thinking?" I sobbed. "What the Hell do we do when she comes home crying because her friends have made fun of her? WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!"

I am a murderer.

Written and submitted by momstheword

Long way off

I don't know if it's age. I don't remember ever feeling this tired with two small kids. I was in my twenties, so maybe that's the trick, quit while you're ahead. Who knew one tiny little person could wear you out so much. I am too tired to even think about eating.

The sink is full of dishes, from kids coming and going with friends all afternoon. The kitchen sink is plugged, and there are clothes in both the washer and dryer. Just thinking about it makes me want to curl up, cover my head and never come out. Maybe when I find the courage to rear my head, it will all be done.

I stood outside today watching my little girl run from one thing to the next, barely able to move. It amazes me how two tiny little legs can travel so far in one afternoon. God, my arms feel too heavy to lift, as does my whole body. I'm thinking it is definitely CMS...what else could it be?

I have been in and out of the car five times today, doing up and undoing a car seat, hauling a small child on one hip. Slinging bags, snacks, blankies, a dropped toy or shoe. I never seem to come back home with less than I left with. How is that, where does all of the shit come from????

I gather up older kids, friends in tow. Take them here and there. I run out to pick up the forgotten milk, just to race home again and remember a forgotten appointment, I have a whole six minutes to get to it.

Sometimes it just feels like it's too much for one person. What's too much? Oh yeah, I still have to feed the cats, let the dog out, feed the lizards, and the fish too. And I guess if it isn't too much, I should probably think about feeding myself. Rest is a long way off.

My kid is a genius

It is a little late, but here is one of my Mother's Day presents. The Kindergarten teacher actually compiled all of the pictures into a booklet for all the parents. People have been coming up to me and complimenting me on my lovely big head. I know it is early, but I think she is an artistic genius.

Note to Self:

If your six year old wakes up every night for a week, he is about to get very sick.

Oh. This is Fun.

I don't think I can adequately express, in a post you'd be remotely interested in reading, how awesome it is to have friends.

Real, close, lovely friends, who understand you, support you, laugh at you, and touch you (well, not touch me, but move me. Well, not really move me. I'm slightly too big, and they're slightly too little. I could hurt one of them.....oh, you know what I mean.)

I feel like one of those rare women you hear about who actually has a deeply meaningful relationship with other women. 

For that, I am blessed (well, not really blessed, I haven't been to church since.....oh, forget it.)

Suffice to say, I love my friends. I love that we agree. I love that we disagree. It's a damn good feeling.

Sound Bites from the Dalai Lama

My husband gave me a corny desk calender for Christmas. Quotes from the Dalai Lama. Ya think that's a hint about something? My inner-piece is just fine thank you (my inner-piece of apple pie, anyway!)

Today, there's a quote I wanted to share:

"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."

And, sister, it's a Hell of a lot easier than ensuring immortality through squeezing a squirming, pooping, squalling succubus out of your body!

Responsibility

When I was young, hell, even when I was in my twenties, I was told that I wasn't responsible. I struggled through childhood with anxiety, depression and, frankly, a highly creative and acute mind. Whatever my diagnosis would have been it probably wouldn't have been right (It was the 70's) and I was left to deal with the perception and the labeling that I was "hyper", "irresponsible" and even "unreliable". I heard that. I heard it loud and clear. And though I fought to disprove it, I believed it long into my twenties until I started to truly differentiate myself, prove myself in a world that required that I follow through, finish things on time, colour in the lines. I spent so much time and energy thinking about responsibility...trying to take it, hoping people would see it in me.

And now I have too much.


By the time I was 27, I was married and pregnant and had more responsibility than I new what to do with. In a year, I had gained responsibility for not only myself but TWO other beings. And it was crippling. I was terrified of losing my husband (to a drunk driver, a red ant attack...anything!) and overcome by the responsibility of caring for a child.

I have always wanted children, always wanted to be a mom. It was a plan of mine to make sure I had children before I was 30 because I wanted to be young and fun and full of energy. I had a picture, a vision, of what motherhood would be like. I rushed to get married, rushed to get pregnant, rushed to create the picture of family and normalcy that I wanted to be in the middle of. And when my first child was born I realized how different the reality was.


I spent the first three months of pregnancy wishing I wasn't pregnant. I spent the first two years of my first child's life, wondering if I had made the right decision. I wasn't the fun, energetic mom that I thought I would be. I was young, but I was tired, and terribly anxious, I was depressed and scared and I felt alone in those feelings. I felt judged for those feelings. I felt like it wasn't OK to be bored at home with my beautiful baby. I felt that it wasn't OK to want to get away by myself every second that I possibly could, to dream of getting in my car and just driving far far away.

I have spent most of my thirties coming to grips with the weight of the responsibility of motherhood: learning to accept what I can and let go of the rest. Now, I can enjoy a little more, relax, let loose. But I am sad. I mourn for the those baby days those days I wished away, couldn't get through quick enough. That is the true cruelty of motherhood: that by the time you figure it out, it is over.

Oh, my aching knee, head, back, finger......

Well, really I don't have all of those ailments, but I do have a bum knee. I've always wanted to say that, now that I can it really sucks. Especially trying to chase a busy child around.

I didn't realize how heavy a twenty three pound kid could feel ,untill I had a knee I could barely hold my own weight on, and there's alot of weight there. So I am now hobbling around, trying to keep my littlest one occupied without having to pick her up, and boy does she like to be picked up. Ask anyone who makes eye contact with her and is in arms reach.

I go up and down the stairs about thirty times a day, only now it takes me twice as long. I usually have this little girl clinging to me like a monkey, hanging on for dear life. She still remains my extra, yet squirmy appendage.

It doesn't matter how sick or tired moms get, they just can't seem to catch a break. You could be doubled over puking in a bucket, sitting on the toilet, and someone would still barge in to ask you where their keys, gloves, lunch, homework or anything that pops into their head is(hey, it's haapened to us all).

Feeling like this reminds me of when my older children were small and I got sick, and I mean sick. I was a single mom at the time. Man those times can be pretty scary. I couldn't get off the couch, which remained the safest place for me to be, as I could see every room (or at least doorway to each room) from there. The kids, being kids were happy just hanging out at home for a couple of days, mostly in their pajamas, eating whatever I could stand long enough to prepare.

Finally my sickness had gotten the better of me and I lay there feeling like I could die. I had fallen into that sort of half-sleep that new moms and tired worn-to-the-bone moms sometimes survive on. The house suddenly seemed much too quite. I opened my lead eyelids and it was like waking to a dream. I saw all of this white fluff, resembling barbie hair all over the floor, going up the stairs.

I was way too tired to yell, have a fit or make an attempt to clean it up, so I continued to lay there. Then out of the corner of my eye, from behind a chair comes my oldest child, proud as she can be, announcing she had just given her little brother a haircut. "Isn't he beautiful?" she smiles. And there her newly shorn brother stood, as happy as a clam, sporting a big gaping bald spot in the front of his beautiful blond hair.

He's beautiful alright, lucky he has you!!

Tired, Baby. So Tired.

I'm tired. Sometimes, I'm better at fighting it than others. But today. I'm tired.

I sometimes think there must be something wrong with me. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, maybe. Maybe I should go see my doctor, talk about this, get some tests. But then I'm too tired to make the appointment. And just the thought of hauling my jiggly bum downtown exhausts me.

So, I mumble (to tired to talk) to my mom, or a friend, or my husband. They just sort of look at me dumbfounded. Okay, maybe their rolling eyes are trying to tell me something.

Like, maybe, what else would a full-time mother, full-time employee, mostly full-time wife (sorry B. I'll try to do better), full-time short order cook, full-time on call nurse, occasional part-time housekeeper (and yes, I do do windows, toilets, laundry, and sort out toyrooms), full-time on call psychologist, and increasingly full-time blogger be?

Tired.

I've just self-diagnosed. It's Chronic Motherhood Syndrome. Yup. I have CMS. I hear you can learn to cope with the symptoms, but the root cause remains, though, it's thought not to be terminal. Thank God.

Oh, baby, I'm tired!

Women

The following quote may not really have anything to do with being a mother, but as we all know being a mother has much to do with being a woman. We are constantly wrapped up in trying to find a way to be women, to be moms or to just be people.

"The complicated silence that has prevailed about woman's inhumanity to woman."While women may not be aggressive in the same way that men are, cross-cultural studies confirm that girls and women are equally aggressive in "indirect" ways,and mainly toward each other. Women envy and compete against other women instead of men and tend to deny this, even to themselves. Like men, many women also hold sexist beliefs and are often unaware of it. Women depend on each other for emotional intimacy and bonding, but their power to form cliques, gossip about and shun one another enforces conformity and discourages self-confidence and psychological clarity from girlhood on. Are women oppressed? Yes. Do oppressed people internalize the oppressor's attitudes? Without a doubt. Women, therefore, must acknowledge their own sexism and gender double-standards before they can practice sisterhood, resist sexism, treat other women ethically, and forge realistic and compassionate personal and political coalitions."

By Pamela Viddal

I know that many of you who've read this blog, our very personal feelings on being mothers, and people, have come away feeling somehow like we've managed only to see the down side of being a mom. This is so far off base. What we are doing is trying to listen to ourselves, and give ourselves the chance to say what we are honestly feeling, difficult or not. This is not earth-shattering, it doesn't expose us for the monsters we are, it just is what it is. Sometimes what is being said sounds cold and lonely, but in reality, that is how it feels some days. Other days, being a mother is wonderful, the most joyous, beautiful thing in the world. Should we be strung up for being the ones who have the gall to talk about it? I sure hope not.

We've said it before and will say it again, it never gets easy to open yourself up and share these things, but for us, it is very important. Some of you might say, talk to your friends, talk to your spouse, why put it out there for others to see? Why? Well for me, it is because I have finally found the courage and the voice that was hidden for so long, that is all, nothing more than that.

When I was younger, still a parent, I didn't have the voice to say the things I needed and desperately wanted then to say. Sure there were a couple of times when I was heartless enough to complain aloud. As quickly as the words left my mouth, I found other women condemning me for having the nerve not to enjoy every single moment of motherhood. Why do women do this to each other?

I can only speak for myself , but I do talk to my wonderful, loving, respectful and intelligent spouse about all of this, every hard -to -hear detail. The most incredible thing about it, is he really understands; he supports and he is proud that the person he has chosen to share his life with, feels, thinks and challenges beliefs.

I am so happy that I am loved enough to feel safe, unjudged, even when some of you might wonder how a woman who chose to be a mom could ask hard questions both of herself and other women.

Harder yet, is coming to the realization, that even today, in a climate of change, women still feel like they have to hold back, not upset the balance (news flash, there has never been balance). We would rather turn our backs , judge, ask why one has to stand up and say things that we know are real, and we've at one time or another, felt ourselves.

Quietly we are asked not to tip the scales, not to want for more, not to scream, if need be.

Sure some of you say, we've all felt it, just keep it to yourselves!!

Not on your life sister!!

Laughter

There is something about the sound of a small child's laughter that almost brings tears to your eyes. Here I sit, watching two of my children play. My youngest, much, much younger than her siblings, usually plays roughly, pushing the "big kids" away, with a bit of frustration.

Now the two of them are taking turns hiding behind the long curtains. She screams with glee, breaking out in knee weakening laughter. Her big brother on, and on, enjoying each giggle. It does something to a parent's heart to hear this sort of unabashed sound. They love each other, they really truly lover each other.

He's a good big brother.

It's like the old 'Life Cereal' commercial used to say, "He likes her, he really likes her!!"

My Card

Here is the card my most fabulous husband gave me for Mother's Day:

What a honey he is, and, he gets it!

What's Going On?

Something seems to be going on. Some small shift in my world, and it feels like some small shift in the larger world. Why are we talking about this now? About the dirty, hard, gritty reality of motherhood? Why do we feel compelled to say out loud what we've kept hidden for so long from our friends, our partners, or families?

What kind of mother writes these things? What kind of mother does that make me? 

I'm tired of hiding behind a false image, quite frankly, this false idol of "the Mother." It makes me angry that I have to. Who made these rules? We subjugate ourselves to this idea that we are these glorious, untouchable beings who, even at our absolute worst as parents, have to be placed firmly on a pedestal and worshipped. 

Screw that! 

I'm an incomplete, flawed, and scarred human being. Just like my husband. Just like my co-workers. Just like my mother. Just like you. 

When I was a teenager my mom told me that she loved me more than anything, and she'd throw herself in front of a bus to save me, but that if she had it to do all over again, she wouldn't have had kids. You're shocked! What kind of mother would say that to her child!!!!!

I was shocked too. Before I became a mother. But, my mother loves me, and she did me an incredible service that day. She modeled for me the complexity and conflict of being a mother. She gave me the strength to know that my life has value, as her's did, and does, with or without children. 

I'm angry. I'm pissed off that once I've had a child I am bound by these silent rules. I'm not allowed to express dissatisfaction. I'm not allowed to be unfulfilled. I'm not allowed to want more from my life than my family. 

I have big dreams. Wild, crazy, mad dreams for myself. Should I pretend I don't? Should I internalize everything I hope for myself so that my children don't suspect they don't "complete me?" No! 

What kind of mother do I want my children not only to have, but to see. The kind of woman who gives up everything for other people? Or the kind of woman who loves herself as much as she loves her kids?

It's pretty goddamn clear to me. And I'm unapologetic. 

I'm carving out a life for myself, come Hell or high water. Just as I hope my children will. And if the life they find themselves in, or if the life they choose for themselves is not every little bit of everything they hoped it would be, I hope they have the courage to find their voice and shout it out. And I'll be there cheering them on!

Mother, or Friend?

I think this is a question every one of us must face at some point. Are we more a friend or are we more a mother to our children? Should this even be questioned?

Having been a single mother, I think my experience is not exclusive, in that, at one point or another my children became more like friends than like children.

Not all of us struggle with this issue, certainly some find no issue in being their children's friends. For me it has been different.

When I was a single parent I tended to share more with my children, personal things; finances, worries and the responsibilities of our household. I know there will be some of you out there, shaking your head, saying this was mighty unfair to them. To us, at the time, it was the way it was, the way it had to be in order for us to get through the day-to-day.

Things have changed. I now have a wonderful, supportive partner, and the kids are happy, more carefree. Not saying that they weren't happy before, we all were very happy, we just had a much different life, a different dynamic.

I wonder however, how those days shaped who they are today. I have seen my older child struggle to find her place as a child, rather than an equal, or a friend. I do consider myself to be somewhat a friend to my children, but first and foremost for me, I must be a parent.

I don't want my children to depend on me as a friend. I feel strongly that they must find that in their peers, outside of their own families. However, I will always want them to be able to come to me as someone they love and trust.

Having been in the position where your children become surrogate partners (for lack of a better description), it is hard to say whether or not this relationship has been a detriment to them. I worry, I will always worry, that each choice I make in regards to my children will somehow cause them unforeseen damage. I guess this is the burden of all parents.

My only hope is, that I have given them enough strength and confidence to find their own way in this world.

Motherhood

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality especially while you struggle to keep your own."

- Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons

Happy, Happy Day to You All.

I wish for each one of us today, happiness. That is all, just simple happiness, a hot cup of tea, easy laughter with those you love and the knowledge that tomorrow we will wake up being as loved as we are today.

It is hard to write about our daily toils, complaining about those same people, but we all know deep within, our world is more colorful, softer and fuller with them in it.

Here's to the women who have given of their bodies, their time and themselves, to become moms.

Cinderella's Stepsisters

When I was in university I had to analyse a piece of writing. I was looking for something that had meaning to me, and I connected with emotionally. Most of those years I was tired. I was a single mom of three small kids, living on a student loan, and alone in a city I'd never lived in before. My family lived too far away to help--as far away as Japan, and the kid's dad lived on the other side of the world.

I was lonely, scared, dog-tired, and poor. I would go to school all day, pick up the kids, play with them, make them supper, bath them, put them to bed, and then start my homework. It was hard.

But this one time, this one assignment, I had to analyse some one's writing. I found this. A speech by the Nobel Prize winning American author, Toni Morrison, to a graduating class at Barnard College (an all-female university). I cried as I read it. I want to share it with you:

Cinderella's Stepsisters

Let me begin by taking you back a little. Back before the days at college. To nursery school, probably, to a once-upon-a-time when you first heard, or read, or, I suspect, even saw "Cinderella." Because it is Cinderella that I want to talk about; because it is Cinderella who causes me a feeling of urgency. What is unsettling about that fairy tale is that it is essentially the story of a household--a world, if you please--of women gathered together and held together in order to abuse another woman. There is, of course, a rather vague absent father and a nick-of-time prince with a foot fetish. But neither has much personality. And there are the surrogate "mothers," of course (god- and step-), who contribute both to Cinderella's grief and to her release and happiness. But it is the stepsisters who interest me. How crippling it must have been for those young girls to grow up with a mother, to watch and imitate that mother, enslaving another girl.

I am curious about their fortunes after the story ends. For contrary to recent adaptations, the stepsisters were not ugly, clumsy, stupid girls with outsize feet. The Grimm collection describes them as "beautiful and fair in appearance." When we are introduced to them they are beautiful, elegant women of status, and clearly women of power. Having watched and participated in the violent dominion of another woman, will they be any less cruel when it comes their turn to enslave other children, or even when they are required to take care of their own mother?

It is not a wholly medieval problem. It is quite a contemporary one: feminine power when directed at other women has historically been wielded in what has been described as a "masculine" manner. Soon you will be in a position to do the very same thing. Whatever your background--rich or poor--whatever the history of education in your family--five generations or one--you have taken advantage of what has been available to you at Barnard and you will therefore have both the economic and social status of the stepsisters and you will have their power.

I want not to ask you but to tell you not to participate in the oppression of your sisters. Mothers who abuse their children are women, and another woman, not an agency, has to be willing to stay their hands. Mothers who set fire to school buses are women, and another woman, not an agency, has to tell them to stay their hands. Women who stop the promotion of other women in careers are women, and another woman must come to the victim's aid. Social and welfare workers who humiliate their clients may be women, and other women colleagues have to deflect their anger.

I am alarmed by the violence that women do to each other: professional violence, competitive violence, emotional violence. I am alarmed by the willingness of women to enslave other women. I am alarmed by a growing absence of decency on the killing floor of professional women's worlds. You are the women who will take your place in the world where you can decide who shall flourish and who shall wither; you will make distinctions between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor; where you can yourself determine which life is expendable and which is indispensable. Since you will have the power to do it, you may also be persuaded that you have the right to do it. As educated women the distinction between the two is first-order business.

I am suggesting that we pay as much attention to our nurturing sensibilities as to our ambition. You are moving in the direction of freedom and the function of freedom is to free somebody else. You are moving toward self-fulfillment, and the consequences of that fulfillment should be to discover that there is something just as important as you are and that just-as-important thing may be Cinderella--or your stepsister.

In your rainbow journey toward the realization of personal goals, don't make choices based only on your security and your safety. Nothing is safe. That is not to say that anything ever was, or that anything worth achieving ever should be. Things of value seldom are. It is not safe to have a child. It is not safe to challenge the status quo. It is not safe to choose work that has not been done before. Or to do old work in a new way. There will always be someone there to stop you. But in pursuing you highest ambitions, don't let your personal safety diminish the safety of your step-sister. In wielding the power that is deservedly yours, don't permit it to enslave your stepsisters. Let your might and your power emanate from that place in you that is nurturing and caring.

Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about "us"; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.