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POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE—OF PARENTHOOD
THE FAMILY GROOVE’S RESIDENT MOM-ENTATOR,
SASHA BROWN-WORSHAM, REPORTS ON THE MADNESS OF MOTHERHOOD
The Good Mom
Being a mother can be a thankless job. There is an endless supply of bums
to
clean, noses to wipe, nails to clip. Just when I think I've accomplished one
task,
another rises in its place like some mythical beast even Odysseus could
not have slain.
My days are filled with tears—both hers and mine. I alternate between wanting to pull her into my lap for a squeeze and wanting to toss her out the window. In some of my lower moments, I have actually contemplated putting her into the car seat for a little while just to get some peace. By the time 5 p.m. rolls around, I am tapping my foot, checking my watch, thrilled with my anticipated break. Daddy is on his way home.
When he walks through the door, Sam speed-races toward him, lifting her little arms, crying “Dada! Dada!” My job is done for the day. I can relax, put my feet up, read a book, go for a run, drink a glass of wine. Or can I?
Within minutes of his return and my retreat, the questions begin. They start small: “Honey, where are her bottles?, What do we want to give her for dinner?, Where is her other shoe?” And end big: “Don’t you want to sit at the table with us for dinner?”
Um, nope. I don’t. I want to lie on the couch and read the book I have been staring at lustfully all day. Most of the time, I join them—resentfully, at first. We talk, we laugh. It puts me in a better mood.
I never wanted children more than I wanted a husband. Many women speak of the children first, their future spouses an afterthought. “I want to be a mother,” they might say. I never felt that. Any desire I had to have a child came directly from my feelings about my husband. I wanted our child. I wanted our family.
Without him, I do not enjoy motherhood nearly as much. Most days, I am just exhausted. At four and a half months pregnant with our second child, being a mother is a tall order. It is tiring—so tiring, in fact, that I often fall asleep as she plays only to be jolted awake by her shrieks of laughter. I am sure a good mommy could stay awake while her daughter plays with her LeapFrog table. My sweet baby is moving full throttle into toddlerhood, replete with all its demands and tantrums, and we have the recipe for a mom who pretty much thinks she is incapable of making it through the next year, let alone the next 19 or so.
My husband, meanwhile, gets to be Superdad just because he spends the evening with her and puts her to bed. Sure, he adores her, he plays with her, he uses his non-pregnant energy to swoosh her around the house, walk her and wheel her cars up the walls. But I can’t help feeling resentful, as if the bar is set lower for him and his kind.
To be a good father means, as Ayelet Waldman says in a recent New York magazine article, “to show up.” On the other hand, being a “good mother” is more or less akin to chasing a dodo bird.
I once read an article by a mother whose husband was such a saint that she felt usurped in her motherhood. I feel that woman’s pain. No matter how good a mother I try to be, I will always pale in comparison to my husband. For a long time I felt this was because he was just better, his patience endless, his exhaustion less acute, his ability to keep the big picture in mind more stable. But I am no longer convinced that is true.
Yes, he is a wonderful father. But I am not so bad myself. Yes, even if my daughter sometimes crawls on the floor of public restrooms (gasp!) and I do not wipe down every surface with heavy-duty Germ-A-Phobe. Neither does my husband. But nobody wants to report him to the mommy police. Prior to having children, I assumed we would be equal-share partners in Baby Raising Incorporated. Not so, as it should happen. Mommy is always CEO, and when the company tanks, she is to blame.
Sometimes I feel like telling people that I do all he does for her—and more. I feed her. I sit on the floor, endlessly listening to cloying children’s music. I take her to playgroup, to doctor’s appointments, on long walks. The problem is, those are all the things I am “supposed” to do for my child—and with no kvetching. Constantly squelching one’s own needs for someone else is hard, harder than they ever tell you it will be. But unlike me, my husband does not struggle with these issues. He seems born to parent while I often feel like I am trying to force a hat on my head that is far too tight.
Maybe it’s my knack for overanalysis. She will only be young once and her fleeting youth is easy to lose sight of in the drudgery of daily tasks. Maybe some mothers are better at this than I. My husband is certainly better at it.
His ability to keep his eye on the prize makes me a better mother. His gentle reminders to sidle up to the table when I want to eat by myself are often resented, but they are right. Much as I want to retreat (and should be able to for an hour or so each day), my daughter grows more every day. She becomes more a girl and less a baby. Someday I might wish I had endless dinners sitting in front of me, her safe in her high chair, eating broccoli and yogurt, tossing nuggets to the dog. Maybe this is why kids need two parents. One can be tired, at the end of her rope and exhausted while the other rebounds, reminding everyone just how lucky they are.
He is a good—no, a great—dad. I am a good mom. And she is a very good baby. Even with all our faults, we are very, very lucky.
Sasha Brown-Worsham is a mother and freelance writer who lives in Boston, MA where she writes and chases her suddenly mobile daughter around the house.
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