I am the mother of three children.
Three living children.
I’ve carried more . . .
In my teens, there were “accidents.” Lazy, selfish accidents. And terminations without question or remorse.
I was sixteen years old. My weight was an issue, and I was giving away my body as a way to cover that up. (I was that fat girl who, if you looked at me twice, I’d do it with you.) Runnin’ with Rasma, my absolutely beautiful best friend: tall, chestnut hair, green eyes. I think even I had a crush on her, as did every guy that I ended up fucking.
Just like that, I was late. My unexpected surprise was from someone I thought was my boyfriend, but that would have been news to him.
Anyway, somehow I was pregnant. I ended up in a free clinic, Rasma as my support, probably after school. (I don’t really remember.) The doctor sucked out my baby. I was young and didn’t feel any consequence.
Rasma took me to a friend’s house, so I could recoup from my evacuation away from my parents’ eyes. She lay next to me in a twin bed in the back room. We drank Southern Comfort and giggled, relieved that my parents were none the wiser.
There was another one aborted maybe a year after the first one. I can say that, at the time, it was, to me, my only option. I treated the procedures as casually as I had treated my body, which is what had gotten me there in the first place.
I was sleepwalking.
It was only after the successful arrival of my oldest child that I gave those first two a thought—and a good cry. I am pro-choice, yet my behavior at sixteen and then again at seventeen had nothing to do with making a choice. There was no choice about it. Just an instinctual urge to make the potential source of inconvenience and trouble go away.
Looking back, I reflect on who I was at that time. I had already taken flight from day-to-day goings-on into a haze of diet pills and red wine. I was shy, overweight, manly (Daddy’s word, not mine!), and once I was fueled up with a bit of speed and wine from a jug, I could turn on the girly flirty bit and take whatever was offered up.
I gave my body recklessly.
So did my friends. We were all about it.
As for women’s movement chatter, we misinterpreted what it meant to be living liberal.
STDs, free clinic visits for antibiotics, Kwell lotion. Sometimes weekly visits, always on a regular basis . . .
In my twenties, I got married. Freddie Beckmeier and I never got pregnant.
In my thirties, I got married again, to Jack White. Before we got married, we couldn’t stop getting pregnant. After just three short months, I was knocked up. We miscarried. Within the next three months, knocked up again.
Ruby.
A baby girl. Stillborn.
Now I am one mother.
With three children.
I am a very different mother to each one of them. Not in all ways, but my mothering is not a one-size-fits-all type of mothering. And they are not one-size-fits-all kids. Sarah likes to talk a lot, mull things over, voice her opinions. She likes to have discussion. She’s opinionated, and she needs an ear. It’s not difficult because she’s so interesting. She likes to be with people more than alone. She’s not as solitary as her younger brother, Jackson. He also likes to have his mother’s ear, but he’s much more to the point. He wants feedback, but only when he asks. Esmé, the youngest, requires more hugs than the other two (but she also gives more) and a lot more physical attention.
We have our share of “Our family never does that.”
And “That’s just so us.”
We all tend to share a wry sense of humor. And together we can all share a good joke. But, for example, Sarah finds it easy to laugh at herself, whereas Jackson tends to take it all to heart. He can dish it out, but he can’t always take it. Esmé, being surrounded by older siblings and a household filled with doting adults, has that “Look at me!” baby thing and always wants to show she can get the joke.
What has worked for one has never worked for all, aside from the basics: manners, kindness, giving back.
They have all had different requirements, but there were also ways in which I have parented them similarly.
I’ve made every mistake a parent could possibly make. That’s how I’ve learned, through trial and error, oftentimes by doing the wrong thing first. None of them came with a how-to parenting book, as no kid does.
I’ve shoved my opinions down their throats. I’ve kept them very close. I’ve coddled them and done more for them, maybe, than I should have. I’ve practically taken their baby steps for them. I’m still trying to undo that.
I’ve been distracted by work, especially when I was a single mom trying to keep all the balls in the air.
My children, finally, taught me to listen. The lessons I’m learning now, as the parent of a twenty-two-year-old and a twenty-year-old, are about just being there for them.
They are all affected by my disappointment in their occasional poor choices. But it doesn’t stop them from sharing them with me. They know I’ll be reasonable—or at least strive for that.
I give them my attention.
They tell me how they feel. Not always the circumstances of their lives, I’m sure, but how they feel.
When they are overwhelmed.
When they are triumphant and proud.
I stop for them.
I sit on my hands.
I hold my tongue.
I stifle my opinions, so they’ll keep coming back, keep talking.
To an open heart.
I’ve always told them to ask for what they want in life. You may not get it, but you should always ask.
* * *
When I became a parent, I vowed not to be like my parents. For my parents, having kids was different than having kids was for me. I was born on the tail end of “Children should be seen and not heard.” So I can’t wholeheartedly throw blame on my folks for not listening very well. I wasn’t supposed to have a voice. So what did they know?
They half-assed heard me. It was selective. Through their own shit opinions about themselves. I learned how to talk really fast, get to the fucking point, before a door slammed, before their eyes rolled, or mine started welling up.
I’d exaggerate.
I’d dramatize.
I learned to be a really good liar. About things I shouldn’t have had to lie about.
Who my friends were, or where I was going, or where I’d been the night before. But just in case what I thought was normal wasn’t. And, never quite sure if the truth would set a fire, I’d lie. Just in case.
In my years of recovery, I’ve heard a lot about always having a plan B. Didn’t have to tell me that. Maybe I didn’t have a plan B in my career. But I grew up always having a plan B: an escape hatch, a lie to keep me safe.
As the oldest of five kids, my position would diminish with each new arrival. It’s tough to share the top spot, especially when there wasn’t a large reservoir to begin with. I always felt the squeeze and the burden we put on my mom. I’d watch her shrink, just a little bit, under the weight of one more mouth to feed, one more dream to scratch off her list as time ran thin, with all those diapers and bottles and dreams that drowned out her own.
So I give what I had hoped to receive.
I didn’t know what it meant to really commit until I had my children. Marriage always had its exits, particularly in the generation in which I grew up, where everyone seemed to get divorced. With children, it’s forever. You work it out. That’s what it means to love.
It always fills me up, gives me more: energy, life, a reason to stand tall, not shrink or deplete.
I always say my kids saved my life. Really what I mean is: they gave me life.
Being their mom has helped me to know what my parents must have felt for me. It makes me certain that at one time, it was love like that. Even if my parents couldn’t always show it.
I couldn’t wait to have my kids (when it was time to have them).
No amount of career success has impressed me the way I was impressed by giving birth. That was miraculous. That was an achievement I could clock and be proud of.
My mother always had to have help. She was in bed a lot. I also have always had help. Because I was working, I had to find a way to do both things. That was the difference between my mother and me. I was going to find a way to have a job, a good marriage, and a family. That’s why it took so long to let go of my marriage to the father of my first two kids, because my conviction was to have a solid marriage and family life. So I was going to make it one. Only in hindsight can I see that I had to let go of that family ideal to get to where I am now.
The other thing I’ve done differently from my parents is this: I’ve slowly revealed to them myself and the realities of my life, as they were the appropriate age. When you raise children, you spend so much of your time protecting them from any and all evil forces in the world. I remember the day when, in response to “That’s not fair,” I started to tell them, “You know what? The world’s not fair. You’re right. And you’ve got to deal with it.”
There also comes a time when I let them know I’ve had a rough go of it too. I got sober before I had my kids. They’d always known I didn’t drink because I was allergic to alcohol. They didn’t know the gory details. Now the older two do. I revealed it slowly.
The best we can do is to be the example. Live our lives well and if it’s supposed to rub off, it will.
When I first became a mom, I unfairly expected myself to be all things to all of my kids. What I’ve learned is that you find your strong suit and don’t expect yourself to have all bases covered. I was never a good playdate or silly-games-playing mom. I liked Legos and coloring, board games, and puzzles. But I was not great at make-believe and tea parties, dolls and playing house. I’m the one you come to for advice. I’m kind and nurturing, and good with life lessons and compassion regarding affairs of the heart, and so on. As with most things in life, I’ve learned this about myself in hindsight.
The benefits are profoundly revealed in the more relaxed way I parent my third child, Esmé. I’ve let go of my opinions on what I should be doing that I’m not.
I play to my strengths and parcel out whatever else she needs to others who do it better: a kind babysitter, a doting aunt, the housekeeper, the nanny, the neighbor.
So dare to lower your expectations on the parenting front.
Stop being so anal about doing shit perfectly.
And get happier kids, because you’re not such a neurotic mess.
You’ll actually be present, and your kids will be too!
