I don’t really fit the profile seen by the average grocery shopper as she waits in line
at the check out and is bombarded by the proliferation of media. I didn’t establish a
bona fide “career” before I had children, nor did I wait the obligatory three years after
being married before I took the “next step” of having children. I waited, precisely,
approximately, plus or minus a couple of days, two weeks. Two weeks. And this after
both my husband and I entered into matrimony technically as virgins. What the hell
were we thinking? Were we? Does having rampant, virginal, and most importantly,
unprotected sex qualify, ever, as thinking?
So, as I was evaluating the lack of motherly feelings I have, which is a nice way of
saying that I was obsessing on a grand, guilty scale the lack of positive feelings I feel
towards acting “motherly” toward my children, several thoughts came to me:
It is not news that I live in a culture categorically defined by image. I cannot escape
the smiley-toothed Gap ads that depict happy, fulfilled, carefree and usually thin
women with perfect highlights and perfect style, who project a full and happy
existence never marred by depression or rage. I believe that I am adversely
affected, however subconsciously, by the relentless television advertisements or
momentary celebrity attained by the “average” woman on Oprah or Dr. Phil that
project fulfilled motherhood as being primarily defined and driven by happy feelings.
This led me to what I find a very burning question: Just what do I expect motherhood
to do for me? Do I, or did I at an undefined moment in the past, expect it to give me
ultimate purpose or at least a sense of direction that was supposed to give me any
manner of “good feelings?” Do I somehow expect that my children will define my
purpose for me, just because they exist? Because I didn’t have a definitive identity
before I birthed baby identities, I’m faced with the dilemma, now, of trying to define
who I am in the midst of who I’ve become: a mother. But here’s the thing. I’m not
alone. My friends who do fit the profile, who put in the obligatory responsible thought
and made decisions using their fully adult selves, weighing all the pros and cons, and
the many who eagerly desired for children are facing the same guilt-ridden question:
Why don’t I feel like a mother? More to the point, How is a mother supposed to feel?
It’s time to debunk whatever mother myths are running rampant that mandate that
any woman worth her weight in ovaries will necessarily, upon bearing children, feel
completely and utterly maternal toward her children, and nurture them for eternity. It’
s absurd and not a reality. There’s certainly plenty of literature on postpartum
depression and the absence of immediate feeling that a mother has toward her child,
but what about me? Today, my daughter wanted to snuggle and have me entertain
her by reading her story after story, and I said no. I didn’t want to. Plain and simple.
But then the voice inside of me starts: good mothers want to read to their kids.
Good mothers feel happy and content to read to their children. I stuffed a sock in
her and went downstairs to hang out with my husband.
Will I shock and appall you when I say that I really find my husband and other adults
infinitely more interesting than my own children? I love my little girls, and they
sometimes make me laugh. I love to squeeze their chubbiness and hug them up, but
the truth is, often they make me want to pull my hair out. Frankly, sometimes they
bore me. Honestly, the times I most fully enjoy my kids is on the weekend, when my
husband is home, and I don’t bear the full burden for their little emotional selves.
The pressure is off. So then I end up feeling really guilty for the remainder of the
week, where I grit my teeth and get by.
It’s not all bad, really. It’s simply that the few moments in a day that I sit back and
laugh at my toddler’s antics or genuinely am interested in the 400th story my
kindergartner is telling are just that: few. And I’m left thinking that I’m supposed to
be having a lot more of them. It’s just that the monotony, punctuated by moments of
extreme boredom (what a monk said classified the monastic life, by the way) leave
me wondering what mother gene I’m missing. My friends and I have a running joke
that any old lady who tells us to “enjoy these days, they go so fast” gets a full
headlock and a head noogie for being so trite and mean. How does one go about
enjoying famine?
So what image has been portrayed to leave so many of us feeling this way, stealing
furtive glances at the moms at the park or the McDonald’s playland, secretly
wondering if they’re really seizing their moments as mothers and relishing most parts
of it, or if they’re just playacting for my benefit? To be fair, there’s the token article in
the parenting magazine about how the tantrums of your toddler can “stress you out,”
but I rarely see the title to an article that says: “What to do when you want to run
screaming off a cliff rather than face another day finding shoes and slathering
peanut butter on whole wheat bread.” And what is preventing any significant
literature or movement from coming down the pike to annihilate said image and give
us all a significant, collective sigh of relief, that we’re doing “good enough?”
Since when did motherhood become an idyllic picture of boundless energy and
endless patience? I crave hearing from seasoned mothers about how they sent the
children out to play all summer and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about it. There were
no “special” days to the zoo, followed by a trip to the Nature Museum. I read a
hilarious comic around the time that school started. Two mothers are putting their
children on the bus on the first day of school, and the one says: “Charlotte’s quite
exhausted from a busy summer—we had violin lessons and music camp and
enrichment classes. So, what did Billy do?” The other mother says, “He spent every
day in the back yard putting together his playhouse.” The first mother says
skeptically, “Well, I guess that doesn’t officially qualify as child abuse,” to which the
other mother says, “That’s what I figured.”
Truth be told, I’ve found more sympathetic mothers—that is, mothers that I relate to—
in the funny papers than anywhere else. Just today, the Baby Blues comic (sheer
brilliance, I might add) gave me temporary solace from the uber-mother
expectations. An expectant mother sits on a bench, a set of headphones on her
belly. Wanda, the experienced mother, asks, “Mozart?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“When my first baby was born, my plan was for her to play the piano and be fluent in
at least two languages by the age of five.”
“Wow!”
“Then when I had my second baby, I was little more realistic.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I scaled back my expectations to just reading and writing by age five.”
“Interesting. And with your third?”
“Potty-trained and weaned by the time she graduates from college.”
While I will always be eternally grateful to my friends in the comic strip industry, the
oddity of finding a community in print and using mostly caricatured faces is not lost
on me. I’d much rather have Aunt Ida next door telling me the same thing Wanda
McPherson did today in the Sunday paper, because of course then I could see just
how her little babies fared under such expectations, but I’ll take what I can get. Still, a
more, shall we say, fleshy community of women would certainly be my preference.
But I’ve strayed from my original point. Do reluctant mothers fit a certain profile? Or,
like the rest of the human race, do we come in all shapes and sizes, colors and
patterns, a-types and b-types? And is there a place of rest within our own minds,
where we can be “good enough”, finally freed from the tyranny of image? I hardly
know where to begin to combat the images portrayed that forever make me pale in
comparison to them. Except for Wanda McPherson. I love that Wanda. I’d just love
to have her over for coffee.
So the moral? If you’re a reluctant mother, read the comics.
at the check out and is bombarded by the proliferation of media. I didn’t establish a
bona fide “career” before I had children, nor did I wait the obligatory three years after
being married before I took the “next step” of having children. I waited, precisely,
approximately, plus or minus a couple of days, two weeks. Two weeks. And this after
both my husband and I entered into matrimony technically as virgins. What the hell
were we thinking? Were we? Does having rampant, virginal, and most importantly,
unprotected sex qualify, ever, as thinking?
So, as I was evaluating the lack of motherly feelings I have, which is a nice way of
saying that I was obsessing on a grand, guilty scale the lack of positive feelings I feel
towards acting “motherly” toward my children, several thoughts came to me:
- Do mothers who entered into motherhood with greater forethought have these
same feelings, or are they spared them due to their responsible choices in
procreation? - Why do I feel as though the absence of feelings is a direct reflection on my
worth or even effectiveness as a mother? - To what or whom do I attribute this imaginary rubric that rates me from “Good
Mother” to “Bad Mother” based on how happy I feel about motherhood from
one moment to the next? - (the most important) Just how badly am I going to fuck up my children?
It is not news that I live in a culture categorically defined by image. I cannot escape
the smiley-toothed Gap ads that depict happy, fulfilled, carefree and usually thin
women with perfect highlights and perfect style, who project a full and happy
existence never marred by depression or rage. I believe that I am adversely
affected, however subconsciously, by the relentless television advertisements or
momentary celebrity attained by the “average” woman on Oprah or Dr. Phil that
project fulfilled motherhood as being primarily defined and driven by happy feelings.
This led me to what I find a very burning question: Just what do I expect motherhood
to do for me? Do I, or did I at an undefined moment in the past, expect it to give me
ultimate purpose or at least a sense of direction that was supposed to give me any
manner of “good feelings?” Do I somehow expect that my children will define my
purpose for me, just because they exist? Because I didn’t have a definitive identity
before I birthed baby identities, I’m faced with the dilemma, now, of trying to define
who I am in the midst of who I’ve become: a mother. But here’s the thing. I’m not
alone. My friends who do fit the profile, who put in the obligatory responsible thought
and made decisions using their fully adult selves, weighing all the pros and cons, and
the many who eagerly desired for children are facing the same guilt-ridden question:
Why don’t I feel like a mother? More to the point, How is a mother supposed to feel?
It’s time to debunk whatever mother myths are running rampant that mandate that
any woman worth her weight in ovaries will necessarily, upon bearing children, feel
completely and utterly maternal toward her children, and nurture them for eternity. It’
s absurd and not a reality. There’s certainly plenty of literature on postpartum
depression and the absence of immediate feeling that a mother has toward her child,
but what about me? Today, my daughter wanted to snuggle and have me entertain
her by reading her story after story, and I said no. I didn’t want to. Plain and simple.
But then the voice inside of me starts: good mothers want to read to their kids.
Good mothers feel happy and content to read to their children. I stuffed a sock in
her and went downstairs to hang out with my husband.
Will I shock and appall you when I say that I really find my husband and other adults
infinitely more interesting than my own children? I love my little girls, and they
sometimes make me laugh. I love to squeeze their chubbiness and hug them up, but
the truth is, often they make me want to pull my hair out. Frankly, sometimes they
bore me. Honestly, the times I most fully enjoy my kids is on the weekend, when my
husband is home, and I don’t bear the full burden for their little emotional selves.
The pressure is off. So then I end up feeling really guilty for the remainder of the
week, where I grit my teeth and get by.
It’s not all bad, really. It’s simply that the few moments in a day that I sit back and
laugh at my toddler’s antics or genuinely am interested in the 400th story my
kindergartner is telling are just that: few. And I’m left thinking that I’m supposed to
be having a lot more of them. It’s just that the monotony, punctuated by moments of
extreme boredom (what a monk said classified the monastic life, by the way) leave
me wondering what mother gene I’m missing. My friends and I have a running joke
that any old lady who tells us to “enjoy these days, they go so fast” gets a full
headlock and a head noogie for being so trite and mean. How does one go about
enjoying famine?
So what image has been portrayed to leave so many of us feeling this way, stealing
furtive glances at the moms at the park or the McDonald’s playland, secretly
wondering if they’re really seizing their moments as mothers and relishing most parts
of it, or if they’re just playacting for my benefit? To be fair, there’s the token article in
the parenting magazine about how the tantrums of your toddler can “stress you out,”
but I rarely see the title to an article that says: “What to do when you want to run
screaming off a cliff rather than face another day finding shoes and slathering
peanut butter on whole wheat bread.” And what is preventing any significant
literature or movement from coming down the pike to annihilate said image and give
us all a significant, collective sigh of relief, that we’re doing “good enough?”
Since when did motherhood become an idyllic picture of boundless energy and
endless patience? I crave hearing from seasoned mothers about how they sent the
children out to play all summer and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about it. There were
no “special” days to the zoo, followed by a trip to the Nature Museum. I read a
hilarious comic around the time that school started. Two mothers are putting their
children on the bus on the first day of school, and the one says: “Charlotte’s quite
exhausted from a busy summer—we had violin lessons and music camp and
enrichment classes. So, what did Billy do?” The other mother says, “He spent every
day in the back yard putting together his playhouse.” The first mother says
skeptically, “Well, I guess that doesn’t officially qualify as child abuse,” to which the
other mother says, “That’s what I figured.”
Truth be told, I’ve found more sympathetic mothers—that is, mothers that I relate to—
in the funny papers than anywhere else. Just today, the Baby Blues comic (sheer
brilliance, I might add) gave me temporary solace from the uber-mother
expectations. An expectant mother sits on a bench, a set of headphones on her
belly. Wanda, the experienced mother, asks, “Mozart?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“When my first baby was born, my plan was for her to play the piano and be fluent in
at least two languages by the age of five.”
“Wow!”
“Then when I had my second baby, I was little more realistic.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I scaled back my expectations to just reading and writing by age five.”
“Interesting. And with your third?”
“Potty-trained and weaned by the time she graduates from college.”
While I will always be eternally grateful to my friends in the comic strip industry, the
oddity of finding a community in print and using mostly caricatured faces is not lost
on me. I’d much rather have Aunt Ida next door telling me the same thing Wanda
McPherson did today in the Sunday paper, because of course then I could see just
how her little babies fared under such expectations, but I’ll take what I can get. Still, a
more, shall we say, fleshy community of women would certainly be my preference.
But I’ve strayed from my original point. Do reluctant mothers fit a certain profile? Or,
like the rest of the human race, do we come in all shapes and sizes, colors and
patterns, a-types and b-types? And is there a place of rest within our own minds,
where we can be “good enough”, finally freed from the tyranny of image? I hardly
know where to begin to combat the images portrayed that forever make me pale in
comparison to them. Except for Wanda McPherson. I love that Wanda. I’d just love
to have her over for coffee.
So the moral? If you’re a reluctant mother, read the comics.
| All rights reserved. |
| Image by Heather Janssen Fall 2006 |
