Where are the benefits of motherhood? I am finding them here and there, in bits and pieces as I try to relax, despite the difficulties. When we play guessing games at dinner and hide-and-seek in the house. When I go to wake my daughter from her nap and she smiles up at me, sleepy and happy, looking at me with her eyes, one healthy and one pink, like mine, I know I have something. I might not have sick or vacation time to relieve me from my responsibilities. But I have many benefits. More than I can count.

———-

Note:

Since I wrote this piece, I’ve started to feel better. I read Jenny’s post from her Tuesday and wondered why I was complaining! Little gifts from the kids and friends, acts of kindness and care, have helped me too.

I was able to find some time to polish and publish posts…more to come…

Last night we were at a neighborhood Christmas party when one of the neighbors I have never met walked up to Leta and me and asked how old she was. When I told him she was ten-months-old he asked if she was “walking all over the house” yet. I answered, simply, “No.”

He looked quite surprised and then continued, “Well, I guess she must be in that crazy crawling stage, huh?”

And when he said that it felt like a dagger went through my heart.

While I haven’t had a child like Leta, I have had those daggers hit my heart. Two of our three kids didn’t walk until 18 months, on the extreme of the curve. At that age, many kids have been walking half of their lives, while mine were barely able to take a step. Pediatricians have had concerns for our children, and our first one was subject to special scrutiny. My babies also tended to be low on the weight chart, to the dismay of those who wanted to plot points on a median curve. Each one of our children has had minor medical problems that have required extra attention.

Later in the same post dooce wrote

It’s not that I am ashamed of the fact that she isn’t crawling. It’s just, people ask me all the time if she’s crawling yet, and I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I feel like it’s my fault, and while I know that’s not true, I keep wondering if there’s something I should be doing that I’m not doing.

Between our scientific knowledge and our sense of parental responsibility, we moms and dads can feel it is our fault when our kids are off the curves on the chart. If they’re not crawling or walking or babbling or growing according to the standards and expectations, we parents bear the blame, or at least we carry it around on top of our shoulders, or lay on it like a bed of nails each night. Any question from a stranger or even a glance or awkward playground moment can make us wince, as the daggers descend.

I believe babies should be taken to physicians for regular medical care and that differences from the norm should be examined and evaluated. It is good to ensure as much as possible that the child is growing and developing as she should. Moms and dads should do what they can to help their children’s health.

However, I also see that there are limits to our responsibility as parents. I can wonder whether our daughters’ minor problems are due to my diet during pregnancy, something I ate, or something I didn’t eat. Maybe I stood too close to a piece of machinery for a moment. Or maybe I allowed too many ultrasounds. Maybe it was the antibiotic I took. My imagination can get carried away and shovel the blame onto me with weight. The guilt can grow – more than the child! – to the point where I am unable to change the situation or see it clearly for what it is.

It’s taken me years of parenting to begin to see our daughters for who they are. To see them without adding the filters of guilt, the lenses motherhood can tempt me to wear, blaming myself for every blemish, wondering whether their imperfections reflect on my lack of parenting.

My girls aren’t perfect. None of them ever will be. I can do my best as a mom. Ted and I will put in our efforts as parents. But our children will have flaws. They are imperfect people, like their parents. As a mom I can help shape and shepherd them. But there are areas of my daughters’ development that are beyond my control. No physician can fix them either. They are wild and alive. God has made each of our daughters in His own way. Each one, in her individuality, in her strengths and weaknesses, reflects back His mystery and beauty.

As I thought about writing this piece, I realized that part of the reason the daggers dig deep is due to the illusion that my child is the only one who is not normal. Watching my kids among others, sometimes I’ve felt aware of their flaws compared to the crowd. Questions from friends or strangers also have hurt rather than helped. I feel my kid must be the only one this way, and therefore I as a mom am also alone.

But as I think about the friends I have, the moms and dads we know well, I can’t think of one family where all the children are “normal” without any special concerns or health issues. The truth is that no one is normal. We all have our problems: parents, children, people – perhaps not identical to each other, but we each have ways where we don’t fit into the statistical curves. As we share how we are not the norm, we come together and discover how normal we are.

I wish I could give Heather a hug

Cavorting with puppets, a purple hippo and plenty of children, friends and family, all to celebrate Michaela’s and a friend’s fourth birthdays! (the girls were born on the same day, but had separate parties on Saturday)

Four years already since Ted and I caught the last boat off the island (at 1:30 am) and headed to Swedish hospital where Michaela would be born hours later.

Watching the children amazes me. It’s hard to find words without choosing cliches.

Abigail now wears all her hair back with a clip, her shaggy growing bangs away from her face. In her new winter wardrobe she seems taller and older. I hardly recognize her. She’s now reading and teaching her younger sisters. She also likes to cook recipes and asks how she can help me. Abigail has even offered me advice, counseling me not to get frustrated!

I hope I always remember Michaela at 3. She’s bubbly, funny and cuddly. Also creative and curious. For example, today she asked what fertilizer and grass seed are.

Abigail: What do you think grass seed grows?
Michaela: Grass
Abigail: So what do you think fertilizer is for?
Michaela: To keep it company!

One of the presents she received the other night was a cute fabric flower with a long thick stem. Michaela seems to think it is a baton. I overheard her tonight saying, “I want to play orchestra so I can be the conductor!”

Elisabeth may be the baby of the family but she’s not a baby. She’s wearing her toddler pants and acting very much the Big Girl. Except when she wants Mommy and Daddy to carry her somewhere. Her vocabulary is adding words each day. She says, “Uh-oh, Mama door” and puts words together. She also helps me and understands much more than she can say. At the puppet show, Elisabeth boldly hugged, kissed and touched the marionettes. She has no fears, or so it seems.

Each birthday that comes means fewer years left at home. I’m going to miss these kids. But we have plenty of years of fun still to come…

apologies for my lack of posts and emails….I was relishing my children while I can…

I think there are a number of reasons why parenting seems to be such a mountain of a task today, to use Lisa’s picture. Part of it, from my experience, comes from the greater perspective and deeper knowledge we have of childhood development. We are aware of many needs children have, and we are responsible to provide them all. Every day I wonder whether each of my daughters is getting the right kind of exercise and stimulation that she needs, according to the various diagnoses we have heard. A plethora of specialists and books are available to help parents in their task – but often with conflicting advice and fees attached. Being a Good Parent has a complex scientific definition now with known consequences. Nevermind the educational requirements and extracurricular activities needed for college acceptance and thereby careers and [supposed] success in later life.

Parenting has become an issue of identity, self-esteem and pride. I know it has for me at times. When we moved to Silicon Valley, I soon realized that one of the first questions asked was “What company do you work for?” We are a culture where employment and career define us. How often have I mumbled beneath my breath, as if ashamed: I’m just a stay-at-home mom?!

Moms – or dads – who have made choices to be at home with children, often feel they must make their sacrifice mean something – something that others will notice too. We have to be Good Parents. It is all we are. All we can do in a day. And what we do is who we are. We lack the titles or business cards, pay checks or promotions that provide respect and a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes I wonder what I have done at the end of the day – sometimes there is nothing I can point to as an enduring achievement.

Whether or not we work outside the home, our children define us. How they behave in a store – or on a standardized test – tells others how to value us as parents and as people, whether or not we have worth. We also judge (condemn?!) ourselves based on our ability to produce what we think should be good parenting or good children. As Lisa said, compassion and understanding can be hard to find, and as this new mother has already experienced, simple praise can be powerful.

Before I had children, I wondered why women, when asked, often identified themselves first as “moms”. Weren’t they wives before they were moms? How about even “I’m a woman.”? But being a mom has become a consuming issue of guilt and identity. These emotions begin before birth, even when discussing various means of conception, as getupgrrl pointed out in her recent post.

Parenting also faces other pressures in our society. As Rayne noted, kids can’t play alone outside today. At the moment, I am reading through some books written fifty to a hundred years ago and noticing how parents sent their children outside to play for the day. But the world is not safe. No responsible parent would send children outside unsupervised for an entire day. And fractured families have resulted in more isolation for parents, meaning that grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins aren’t around to help.

Then again sometimes family isn’t a good thing. As Owlmother’s post and comments point out {via Lisa}, some of us were hurt by our families when we were children. The scars are strong. And we worry and wonder how we can avoid hurting our own children. We look at our own mothers and in various ways hope that we won’t make the same mistakes or do what they did. But it’s a dangerous, delicate dance.

I know I make many mistakes. Some days I feel I must be flunking Parenting 101. It doesn’t feel good. But it’s the truth.

Take, for example, the day we left on vacation. I took the girls to the doctor before we left to make sure they were not too ill for the trip. But I failed to be sensitive to one of our daughter’s needs while we were at the clinic. I could have helped her more in the situation, but I didn’t. I forgot. I was distracted. I didn’t think. I didn’t do what I should have done for her.

Then I came home and fed my daughters moldy bread for lunch. I was too busy packing to watch them eat, but Ted told me that one of the girls took the green stuff off of her slice while the other one noticed and didn’t eat it. I didn’t notice the mold. At least my girls aren’t immune-suppressed and susceptible to aspergillosis…

I packed the garbage can wrong so Ted had to take out all the garbage and re-pack it himself. But I forgot to pack Tylenol for the sick girls. I packed three kinds of thermometers (we are at that stage in life where each girl uses a different one!) but no medicine.

By the time we got to our rented house, I felt I was an incredible failure as a parent.

But it didn’t hit me too hard. I’ve given up on being a Good Parent. That myth of Motherhood won’t be mine. Not that I am not trying to be the best mom I can be. But I know I’ll never be who I want to be. I’ll always make mistakes. Making mistakes as a mom is scary. If I make mistakes as a wife, it’s not great, but I know Ted will understand and somehow survive. Making mistakes as someone in authority over a child is frightening. I know that in my days with my daughters I am shaping something in them. It will last their lifetime. They will remember me, Their Mother. I hope I can do it right.

But I know I won’t do it right all the time every day. I’ll forget. Fail. Do it wrong. I believe parenting is a quilt. It is sewn together with grace and mercy given by God. I’ve got to believe there is a higher power, someone who can help smooth my errors and put the pieces together. I want to do my best. I will. But I also believe that there is someone who has a plan for the mistakes I make as a mom. I’ve got to believe there is someone bigger and better than me and my humanity.

After all, I don’t know much about this job. No matter how many books or experts I consult, I don’t have a lot of experience. I didn’t get a degree in daughters. I’m going to mess up. I am as young at parenting as my children are old. Thinking about my mothering brings to mind the pictures my daughters draw, stick figures with dots for eyes and lines for hands. Even my best efforts at parenting are childish.

The same day I read Lisa’s piece, I also read Richard’s post describing those who blog about their lives. What he wrote encouraged me, while also reminding me why I write about my life. His last paragraph spoke loudly to me that day of thinking about mothering and what a mess of a mother I am at times….

Writing about your personal life means that failures as well as successes should be catalogued if the impression you’re trying to convey to someone is to closer to the person you actually are. Some people would say that writing about your personal failures makes you look like a failure. To me, it makes you look flawed, which is to say, human.

]]> http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1333/feed 4 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1303 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1303#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:58:18 +0000 jjl http://www.julieleung.com/wordpress/?p=1303 Friday on the radio I heard Slate’s Assessment: Let’s Get Rid of August

David Plotz of Slate offers a cheeky commentary on why the month of August should be eliminated, or at least shortened.

Plotz’s plans for August lack one key feature: familiarity with the month. He quips that most people don’t know whether it has 30 or 31 days without reciting the poem. Why not hack off the last ten days? he says.

But his proposals lack one key piece of practical experience. I propose that there is nothing like being nine months pregnant in August to provide familiarity with the month. Better yet is to have a “due date” in the middle but a delivery ending up close to the end. I bet that families who have had children in August know exactly how many days are in the month: watching the days pass on the calendar can be an indelible impression in the mind, a form of water torture, day by day like drop by drop. Following Plotz’s suggestions for truncating August would have had me giving birth near Labor Day; perhaps an appropriate amendment…