**I found this post from a year and a half ago languishing in my drafts folder and decided to publish it. I believe a particular incident had happened that set me off on this long and sort of stereotypical "end the mommy wars" rant but I find that I still agree with most of what I wrote so I am publishing it. Also, baby Dexter makes me happy.**
If there is one thing I have learned over the past 7 years, it is that I parent in a labor intensive way. Everyone knows that parenting is not an easy thing to do, right? I feel that Millennials in particular are not shy about sharing the challenging side of parenting, and, lucky for us, and we have so many new and exciting mediums for whining about it. I think the whining is usually valid, to be honest. Sometimes, when Ryan and I are elbow deep in vomit at midnight, or being shrieked at by the shrill voice of an indignant six year old for the thirtieth time that day, or tending to tiny teeth- shaped war wounds, I will look at the person I chose to pro-create with in utter confusion and ask, "Why does anyone have kids?" Biology is literally the only answer we can come up with in those moments because, aside from the animal need to escape extinction, there is no sane reason a person subjects themselves to the abuse of miniature people day in and out. But apparently, I have found a way to make the hard task of parenting even harder—unreasonable, impossible even. Because no one can really be an attachment parent without going crazy, or homeschool three kids, or breastfeed on demand indefinitely, or want to feed their kids unprocessed foods, or actually enjoy planning elaborate birthday parties, or whatever else it is that I am doing that day that is apparently solely to make other people feel inadequate. Or so I am told. I don't think my lifestyle choices are particularly difficult and I don't expect any one else's life to look like mine. I don't criticize others for not doing things my way. I don't judge others for having different priorities than I do. I am not perfect and I make mistakes—I make them often, I make them daily. And I can also admit there are mothers in the world who so clearly have it more together than I do in every single way that I feel utterly ridiculous in their presence: mothers with houses that look like the glossy pages of a catalog on any given Tuesday, mothers with careers, mothers who can cook delicious meals with more than four ingredients, mothers that wear high heels and don't look like donkeys in them. But I have learned to acknowledge that my feelings about these women has everything to do with me and absolutely nothing to do with them. When other mothers admit their shortcomings and examine their imperfections in blog posts and articles and memoirs, sometimes, it makes me feel less alone and sometimes, it makes me laugh at a time when I could really use that laugh. But what those personal anecdotes often use is a constant comparison to the "other mother." The one who tries too hard, does too much, and who seems to exist only to make the rest of us feel bad. Except she doesn't. In an attempt to appeal to the masses, we have a terrible habit of throwing anyone different under the bus, don't we? Bonus points if you can be mean and funny simultaneously. This happens often among mothers. I find myself listening to it and reading it all the time, but the problem is that the punch line....is often me. The truth is, I struggle to maintain balance in my own life and I don't really care what you are doing with yours; not my circus, not my monkeys. But before you launch into your hilarious monologue about how impossible it would be for anyone to live their life the way I live mine, could you please take a moment to consider that I am an actual person living my actual life...and it isn't all that impossible? Perhaps the things I do are not right for you. Perhaps you just don't want to do them or you have different priorities or you think I am crazy. It is your life and you can do whatever you want. I genuinely hope that you are happy and confident in your life choices, but please remember that happy, confident people have no reason to ridicule another person's choices in order to make themselves feel better. I think sometimes these sorts of things are said and written and agreed with and applauded and shared all over the internet and "liked" a thousand times because moms in particular feel pressured and judged over every single decision we make and it is nice to have someone say that it is okay to be less than perfect for a change. I get that. There are people who disagree with my choices, who think they are imperfect and lazy and who make offhanded comments that I have to take a deep breath over and remind myself not to take personally. There are studies that come out that tell me that maybe all this "extra" stuff I do doesn't even make much of difference and I suddenly feel small and worthless and want to show the world I matter. So, I get it. I do. It can hurt. Sometimes, parenting is a lot like high school; you are pretty sure that everyone is looking at you, you are pretty sure all those people who are looking at you are finding you lacking.... and you need to find your clique and you need to feel validated. But as one parent to another, can I just set the record straight? I think that my parenting choices are better than yours. It is true. It is all true. If I liked your choices better, I would have made them for myself. I made the choices I made because they are better. For me. For my kids. For our lives. But the thing is, there is just way too much pain and suffering in the world for me to waste any time at all pitying your child as long as your child is loved. Until processed chicken nuggets and time out are all that is left of the horrors that children face- until children are no longer starved, abused, and assaulted, until children are never bounced from foster home to foster home, found lying dead in meth labs, sold into slavery, or sent to war- I will not feel sorry for your child. Your child is loved. How freaking amazing is that? And guess what else? So are mine. Maybe the next time you feel like making a joke about the weirdos who never put their babies down, the kids who need a good spanking, the Pinterest mom, the breastfeeding nazi, or the unsocialized homeschool family, you could try to remember that they are people who exist and have feelings and are just doing the best they can. They are not abstract, unattainable ideals to be ridiculed and they are not all snobs with their noses in the air, trying to make you feel like a failure at life. They are moms, just like you. And just like you, they are doing what they feel is best for their children, other opinions be damned. Just try to remember... and I promise to try and do the same. I am looking at you hot mom in stilettos. You rock.
1 Comment
Sometimes, before dawn....when my brain is still cloudy... I hear his feet slapping down the hall in dinosaur slippers. Sometimes, before dawn, when the door creaks open, I see him standing there, curls disheveled and rubbing sleep from his eyes. Good morning, he says... or I'm hungry... or I wet the bed...or any thing at all. His shirt is always bunched up above his belly button. His Raggedy Andy is always shoved under one arm. The other arm hangs on the doorknob and he waits for my smile before crawling into my bed. Sometimes, before dawn, I see him there so clearly in that one second between the door creaking open and swinging wide that it is as if an entire lifetime is lived. An entire lifetime of... Two years. Ten months. Three weeks. Three days. One thousand hugs. Ten thousand kisses. So, I know him. I know it will be him. And when it is someone else, it takes my breath away. My heart swells with pride and love a thousand times a day. It breaks. It bleeds. It sinks to the floor. It turns to stone and then it melts and then it starts to swell again. They say that one day I will get used to this cardiac roller coaster ride. They say that one day I will tune it out like the hum of the refrigerator. I believe them. I just wish that day was today. How can I mourn for a boy I have never met when I have golden ringlets and hazel eyes and pure love right in front of me every, single day? I do not know the answer, but They say one day you learn to live with the guilt.
I don't know if I buy that one. Maybe it is because Once Upon A Time, I carried a boy under my heart- a boy that would crawl into my bed before dawn in dinosaur slippers. He was growing and becoming and then one day he just wasn't anymore. In one moment, the future was rewritten ...like dominoes falling. What was I doing the moment he was stolen? Was I sleeping? Laughing? Eating a sandwich? And some of Them say that it was always meant to be and some of Them say that the only disability is a bad attitude and some of Them say that my grief paints disability as tragedy and it is damaging and I have no right to these feelings at all. Maybe they could just tell the feelings that and they will give up and go away. The doctors say it is like cult-a-sacs in the brain. The blood just didn't make it down a few of those one way streets. Or something. They don't really know. After tests, and tests, and tests, and tests.... It is all essentially a really expensive shrug. But they say the thing about the cult-a-sacs.... and I picture my boy, in his dinosaur slippers, wandering the suburbs. Lost in a sea of mini-malls and beige split-levels. Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky... He is lost there and he can't find his Mama... And I spend my days mourning him and looking for him and falling in love with the fairy child that replaced him... and then missing him again and then not missing him at all and then catching glimpses of him in a cheeky grin or a car seat tantrum and then being angry that I don't get to see him more... and then thinking how silly it is to miss someone that never was.... and then wondering.... Could I find a pair of dinosaur slippers that would fit over AFO's? And this is what it is now. I don't know when it will be different or if it ever will or what They have to say about that... But today a bunch of specialist tried to make my baby do things that he can not do for a couple of hours and it hurt. In a month he starts school and it feels like losing something and maybe gaining something too. Twenty minutes ago, I caught him ripping up a book and he threw his hands in the air like a bandit and belly laughed and it was perfect. And I ordered an extra wide pair of dinosaur slippers online. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
|