“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” My son sounded anything but up.
“Not much,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Terrible. Everything’s going wrong.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Anything I can do to help?”
“Not really. I just needed to talk to you. I always feel better when I do.”
We talked for a while and I promised I’d pray for him. I reminded him he’d been through tougher times. “You’re a survivor,” I said. “You’ll make it.”
“I know, Mom. Thanks.” After we hung up, I felt better too. He still needed what I could give him as a mom—reassurance and encouragement.
I felt warm all over. He calls every once in a while just to talk. I know it’s because I always tried to make time to listen to him when he was younger. It wasn’t always that way. For a brief time in my career as a mother I became so wrapped up in being mother/wife/career woman, I hardly had time to listen to anybody. In fact, I tried so hard it’s a wonder my family survived. For a while I wasn’t sure any of us would.
It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. No! It’s Super Mom!
One of the offshoots of the feminist movement is the unsinkable Super Mom. She can single-handedly keep her home in perfect order, care for children with the expertise of a child psychologist, and have a career (outside the home, of course), which she’s been told makes her an independent, successful woman. She must be a sex siren for hubby, an elegant hostess, and an all-around neat person. But the Super Mom brigade isn’t restricted to working moms. Stay-at-home moms are also urged to join. We are all led to believe we can and must be all things to all people.
The Rising Cost of Flight Insurance
Nothing in this life is free. If you want to join the ranks of super-heroines, you have to accept some of the hazards that go along with the job.
Interestingly enough, the women’s movement liberated women right into the same trap that put men into midlife crisis. Many more women are now receiving equal pay for equal work, but they are also getting the headaches, the ulcers, and the burnout that go with the modern-day version of success.
The problem is, most of us moms who opted for the Super Mom routine a few years ago couldn’t see into the future. We didn’t know the call to freedom and equal rights meant we’d be free to indulge in nervous breakdowns and handle our fair share of stress.
Many of us swallowed the old adage “You can do anything you set your mind to.” While I don’t entirely want to discount that, I must say that some of us mothers have a tendency to overdo.
Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better
I’m one of those perpetual achievers. I used to think there was nothing I couldn’t do, except perhaps play quarterback for the NFL. But on my really up days I might have tried it. I’m always after the brass ring or reaching for a star. So when my friends started chanting, “You, too, can be a Super Mom,” I believed them.
Confident and eager to meet the challenge, I bought teal blue leotards, hot pink tights, and matching striped leg warmers. I tossed on a cape and jumped into my rented phone booth. (I figured I’d save money and use the same outfit in my aerobics class.)
With the determination of an Olympic competitor, I strove to accomplish all my goals—in one day. Time is too short, I told myself. What if a nuclear war started tomorrow? Everything in my life became an urgency.
My days were filled with keeping my home spotless. I sewed clothes for the kids and me, attended school, or worked as a nurse. I volunteered my time as a room mother and dutifully attended parent-teacher meetings. I excelled in gourmet meals, reared my children by the book(s)—and spent quality time with them. I served as a supportive wife and lover to my husband (also quality time). In addition, I worked out daily at a health spa to slim down and stay sexy and healthy. When I had time left over, I would work on calligraphy, paintings, or pottery for self-gratification … or was that self-preservation?
I started out singing with great zeal such songs as: “I’m a Woman” and ended up singing, “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat worms.”
The Great American Burnout
It was the pits. I mean, how would you feel if your beautiful Super Mom cape suddenly went up in flames as you suffered a massive burnout?
I had failed. And to top it off, with my cape burned be-yond repair, I was grounded. My frustration level grew daily. Since Super Moms tend to do everything in a superhuman way, naturally I had to experience super stress. Much of the time I felt like the inside of Mount St. Helens. Pressure built up within me until I felt as if I would explode. Sometimes I did.
Like the time I crawled out of bed and groped my way to the kitchen at 6:30 one morning to fix the children some breakfast. I’d worked till midnight the night before. Sure, I suffered from exhaustion, but I wanted to give my darlings a special treat. Besides, if I didn’t cook breakfast, guilt would sock me in like a dense fog.
I cooked eggs, toast, bacon, and hash browns—the works. Caryl made her entrance with a “Yuk, do we have to eat eggs?” David chimed in with, “I wanted my eggs whole, not scrambled.”
I don’t know how you are in the morning, but before tea, my brain functions at a slightly less than rational level. With unleashed hostility, I yanked a wooden spoon out of the drawer and shook it at them.
“You eat what’s put before you. I could still be sleeping, but instead, I’m out here slaving over a hot stove, so you can go to school with a hot breakfast instead of cold cereal.” Cr-a-ck-ck! The spoon hit the table. Its top half sailed halfway across the kitchen.
I shoved their plates at them and pitched a fork into the sink. I turned, just in time to watch my only large, glass bowl disintegrate into hundreds of free-falling fragments.
A muffled scream forced its way through my tightly set jaw. I closed my eyes and smoldered. Control yourself, my brain commanded. My knuckles whitened as I clung to the counter. Now, take a deep breath, continued Brain. Don’t let this thing beat you. Obediently, I breathed deep, opened my eyes, and tried again.
I pushed a milk carton into the fridge and slammed the door. A threatening thud from inside the big, white box told me I still had troubles. I pulled open the door to a milk flood. Milk gushed endlessly from the tipped half-gallon container, drenching my bare feet and kitchen carpet.
Tears poured down my hot, red face. I savagely grabbed for towels and with hostile vengeance beat on the milk-saturated carpet. Cleanup and tears finally subdued my anger. I looked up at two innocent grade-schoolers, who stared, possum-eyed in wonder that a mother could fall to such a devastating display of violence.[1]
Did I have a field day with guilt over that one. It was the worst blowup I’d ever had, but it made me realize I couldn’t go on playing Super Mom.
I knew I had a problem and began to ask myself some serious questions. For example: Why am I doing this? What’s more important, my family or the things I do for them?
And another thing, if I were to die tonight, what would my kids remember about me? That I could yell louder than any other mother on the block? That they could walk across the kitchen floor without getting their feet stuck on the Kool-Aid they spilled the day before? That I didn’t have time for foolish things like playing tag or Monopoly?
No! No! No! “Oh, kids, please remember all those times we sat huddled together in the rocking chair reading Winnie-the-Pooh and Dr. Seuss. Remember all the times we laughed together? Remember our trip to Disneyland?”
Hey, wait a minute, I told myself. What am I doing? I spent time loving those kids—not always enough, but I wasn’t neglecting them. Then what was the problem? Why was I so tired all the time? Why was I so full of emptiness when everyone told me how fulfilled and successful I’d become?
Then it hit me. I was expecting too much of myself. Even with all the showy props—the costume and the songs—I had never been a real superwoman. Underneath the disguise I was just another laboratory mouse, running wild in a circle cage and never getting anywhere. When I enlisted they’d promised me freedom. It was about time I took it. I went AWOL. I jumped out of the cage and decided I had to stop taking my life so seriously.
I began to realize the floors wouldn’t rot if they got cleaned only once a week (or month). And, if I didn’t catch all the cobwebs one day, they’d still be there the next. And so what if I didn’t get all my sewing done? If the world did end tomorrow, we wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear. Slowly I began to develop a “que sera, sera” attitude. Gone was the urgent need to push, push, push. I made time for daily walks and tried to be more available to those special people in my life.
It worked. I turned in my charred cape and phone booth. I kept the tights, leotards, and leg warmers—my contract with the health spa wasn’t up for another year. I stopped trying to leap over tall piles of laundry in a single bound. I simply waded through the pile—one sweat sock at a time. The laundry got done—eventually. As I lost the desire to be a Super Mom, I lost the tension headaches and stomachaches.
Leaving superstardom behind wasn’t easy. Even after all these years I still experience brief relapses when adrenaline surges through my blood. My heart rate accelerates and beats out a Morse code message to my brain: “You can fly! You can fly!”
Fortunately, I recognize the symptoms. When I feel an attack coming on, I counteract the effect by taking a hike, relaxing in a bubble bath, or forcing myself to sit in the hot tub for half an hour. Another trick that never fails is to curl up with a good novel.
Warning: Super Momming May Be Hazardous to Your Kids’ Health
Being a Super Mom is not only a dangerous occupation for moms but it can also have a direct effect on babies. I have come to firmly believe that every Super Mom cape issued should carry the warning “Super Momming May Be Hazardous to Your Kids’ Health.”
Fortunately, I discovered the stability of having the earth beneath my feet early on. I didn’t pass the Super Mom trait on to my kids. Many moms haven’t been so lucky.
One of the dangers of living in the high-stress, high-tech society is that we often end up pushing those stresses onto our children. There is a fine line that we must walk between striving for excellence in being the best we can be and pushing beyond the limit. Today’s mothers are often under tremendous pressure to compete. We compete in the marketplace for grocery specials, for places to park, and for jobs. Recently, moms have begun to place their children in the heat of competition to turn their kids into Super Babies.
A newspaper article reported that more and more mothers are striving to get their children into the best pre-pre-schools by making reservations before the child is born. One mother, in order to ensure high social status for her two-year-old, hired a limousine to chauffeur her child to school.
Many of today’s parents have fallen into the trap set by a few experts on child development. These experts insist there are lessons for everything and children should be plunged into the world of academia the moment they are born. Some moms have even been encouraged to begin lessons while the child is in the womb.
It is not unusual these days to see parents flash cards in front of their seven-day-old so that by the time he’s seven months he has mastered simple math. Some Super Baby boosters believe children can read at eleven months.
So what if the average baby’s eyes don’t fully focus until three months? And what does it matter that a child can’t attest to the fact that he’s learned to read seven months before he can talk? The important thing is to get that little brain trained while there is still time.
My Baby, the Genius
When you stop to think about it, moms are really suckers for this Super Baby stuff. What mother in the world doesn’t feel that her baby is more intelligent, more adorable, more dexterous than any other baby in the world?
Even though superbabies weren’t the “in” thing when my David came along, I found myself extolling his virtues. Friends would have to endure baby pictures and bragging such as: “Oh, look, he’s only three weeks old and already he’s trying to walk.” (In actuality, I had him draped over my shoulder for a burp and he was trying to kick my hands out from under his feet.) “Wow, did you see that? He pointed to the Dior label on my blouse and said, ‘Duh … duh … duh.’ He can spell.” (Never mind the fact that for three days he’d been pointing to everything, including his toes, and saying, “Duh … duh … duh.”)
It wouldn’t have taken much to convince me I had a genius on my hands and should begin flashing math and spelling cards immediately—just as soon as I signed up my brilliant toddler in music lessons, where at the advanced age of two he could learn to play his mini-violin.
Today, many mothers have climbed aboard the Super Baby Express, and they’ve taken baby along for the ride. Baby business is booming as many women run motherhood as they would a corporation.
All Aboard the Super Baby Express
Glenn Doman, known as the grand guru of baby building, has written such classics as How to Teach Your Baby to Read, Teach Your Baby Math, and How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence. Doman claims, “Tiny children believe that it is their job to grow up. They know instinctively that learning is a survival skill. It’s adults who want to keep children children; during the period they learn the most, we treat them like chowderheads.”[2]
It’s true—babies do learn at an early age. But I worry that all this push-and-shove mentality to get them to excel will create the same kinds of stress, frustrations, and feelings of failure that we see in women who strive to be Super Moms. Yes, babies do learn more in their first few years than in the rest of their lifetime, but think about the vast amount of knowledge that has to be absorbed by those “little sponges” in so short a time. They must learn about life and how to survive in it.
Too Much Too Soon?
Realistically, even the best sponges absorb only so much. Are we trying to fill our babies up with too much too soon?
Babies are born with some primitive instincts, such as the rooting and sucking reflex that helps them find food. From the time they are born, babies must learn where food comes from, and more important, how to let someone know they’re hungry. They must learn how to ask Mom and Dad to change their diapers and how to get someone to cuddle them. They must determine who’s who in this family they’ve been given.
Babies must learn how to hold on to things and how to let go. They must learn how to speak adult as well as teach their parents how to understand baby talk.
Another interesting thought is that children want to please their parents. They learn rules by watching how their behavior affects Mom and Dad. Good behavior is associated with smiles, hugs, and kisses while no-no’s are met with frowns and punishment.
I’m certain you will agree, babies have a lot to learn without the added pressure of flash cards.
Baby Burnout
While love may be the motive for wanting children to excel, the child often considers that the parents’ pleasure in him is in direct proportion to his academic performance.
My concerns for the future of these Super Babies are shared by many experts in the field of child development. In fact, psychologist Lee Salk says, “This pressure for high achievement really sets children up for failure. Love should be unconditional where children are concerned; it should not be based on IQ.”[3]
According to Dr. Raymond Moore, a noted developmental psychologist, children who are pressed to read at an early age often develop reading problems and, more seriously, sight impairment later.[4] Child educators are seeing more and more children experiencing burnout by the time they hit second or third grade—some even earlier. What would you call it when a six-month-old looks at his flash cards with a quivering bottom lip and crawls off in the opposite direction? Fear? Anxiety? Frustration?
Maybe he’s saying, “If you can’t love me unless I play your game, then I’m not sure I want to be loved at all.”
Can’t you see the stressed-out kid rolling down the street in his computerized Super Baby buggy with a sticker on the back that says, I’D RATHER BE SUCKING MY THUMB?
While trying to saturate those “little sponges” with knowledge, parents are filling them with the stresses and strains so prevalent in our hectic, grown-up world. It’s bound to cause problems. The development of Super Baby may have been born out of love and desire for the child to have the very best life has to offer. But it may also be born out of the parents’ desire to be successful.
This is a success-oriented culture where material wealth and social-ladder climbing has become an obsession. Competition and grooming the “successful” child can take its toll on his or her young, impressionable body. Maybe it’s time to count the cost.
Stress-related ailments that used to be exclusive to adults are seen in more and more children. Today we see many children who suffer from abdominal pain, headaches, ulcers, depression, and a general tiredness or lack of vitality. These sound like the symptoms of a man or woman who’s suffering from burnout—not a two-, three-, or four-year-old child.
Perhaps it’s time to relax. Maybe we should let children be children and not force them into adulthood too soon. I’d just as soon let the child become an adult naturally. There really is so little time for play. Let’s enjoy our children while we can.
Now, let’s leave the world of superheroines and mythical, magical moms behind and move forward into part 2. There we’ll find the keys that open the doors to what kids need most in a mom.