I live in a loud house. The boys and husband yell their way through life, the hardwood floors bounce every raised inflection off the ceiling, echoing through my skull like a damn hammer. Endless rugs, bought to dull the sound, have found their way to the garage, stained, ripped, beyond any hope of repair, all stacked for the junk man’s meager profit. Drapes pissed on by dogs, shredded by cats, fingered with the repeated grease of small boy residue, they’re all gone. Cushioning fabric replaced with hard blinds and high valances, the build of endless sound reaches an ear shattering pitch beginning at three every afternoon. The whispered metallic snick of bottle caps twisting against glass is the only quiet sound in the house that lets me keep a semblance of sanity.
Motherhood is balancing act for me. Fierce, indescribable love fighting a driving desire to run from the mind numbing dailiness of children’s needs. Doesn’t matter if you work or stay home, the requirements never change. I’ve done it both ways, the working mode was probably better for my mental health, but I understand that other people take to raising children with much more ease, regardless of circumstance, settling into the demands with little perceived effort or sacrifice.
Endless repetitions of simple instructions; brush your teeth, chew with your mouth closed, say thank you, start your homework, take a bath, send me slipping the rims of lucidity. The constant refrain of schedules and activities, laundry and meals don’t suit me. The endless brawling noise drives me straight out of my mind. I would kill without blinking for my boys, but raising them into responsible members of society, sunrise to sunset, sends me straight around bend. Buckets of monotonous drudgery go into molding decent human beings fit to take their place in society.
I’ve been a mother for twenty seven of my forty five years. All of my adult life has been spent raising children and I won’t be officially done for another ten years. We all know you’re never really done until the day you die and have to let go for good.
I struggle with the reality of who my sons are and my inner expectations of who I want them to be on a daily basis. My eldest is a romantic dreamer, he stumbles over the same mistakes repeatedly and lives his life with an open heart to all comers. He trusts in the universe to cushion his blows and when it doesn’t, he pays the consequences with a confused frown, stunned at the price life exacts for foolish mistakes. The boy has a tremendous work ethic, an able wit and gorgeous good looks, but I hold never ending worry about his absent minded choices and costly missteps. He walks through the world with his eyes half closed, preferring a vision of his own making versus hard reality.
A full grown man now, he was born with an easy going soul and my choices altered his natural path, caused him incalculable pain that must have shifted who he should have been into what he’s become. He’s my guilt child, the one I’ll bail out, within reason, maybe without, until the day I die. He’s my own handcrafted boy, cobbled with the blunt edge of young mothering skills into the man I love today. I own him with a difference I don’t feel for my other two. Michael was born as I barely entered adulthood, he grew up alongside me, reaping the full force of my mistakes and bad decisions. I’m proud of who he’s grown into and shamed by the hard fact that I stunted his potential. I could have been a better mother, but I chose myself over my child too many times in those early, selfish years. He weighs on my heart with equal measures of joy, relief and guilt.
My middle child was my heart’s desire, rooted in the unexpected, deep love I found in my early thirties. Sam may have been a spiritually planned lesson in patience, he mirrors his mother in looks and personality while harboring a deep affinity for his father. Once I caught his rhythm, life settled into a series of highly scheduled minutes designed to suit his absolutist nature – this child of mine views the world through a narrow prism of black and white, he’s never met a shade of gray he likes or fully understands. Unexpected twists in life cause him high anxiety, unless they’re of his own rare making. Running out of milk or five minutes late makes him twitchy, a surprise party would be a misery beyond belief. He can’t comprehend cruelty or meanness, hell, he just learned how to tease this year and his attempts have no sting. He’s a sweet child, living in his head, comfortable in his non-conformist skin and I foresee a world of pain waiting for him when he enters the cruel realm of adolescence.
My third son came out like a lamb and grew into a lion. Contentious beyond belief, he’d argue with a stump after subjecting it to a grueling session of unanswerable questions then insist it play a hard game of take no prisoners Horse on the court. He’s an endless ball of spontaneous combustion, the mouth and body run in third gear fueled on high octane testosterone. Even standing still, he stays busy. Watching him in the outfield, you’d swear he had his own fascinating playground tucked down the front of his pants. And he sings or hums, all the time, never a quiet moment for my Tom. I expect he’ll have the easiest life of my trio.
I think motherhood must suit some inner need or I would have stopped at one, saving myself for private pursuits as I enter the last half of my life. Sometimes I wonder if I use the children as a crutch, an easy excuse to be mundane rather than exceptional. I truly can’t imagine not having children underfoot, but raising them is a tough gig. I hold a tight, bright glimmer of envy for women who chose a quieter path uncluttered by the responsibility of small lives. And that makes me feel guilty.
Daphne,
I’ve met a few parents who seemed to make the right choices instinctively. Their serenity is fascinating.
I’ve often wondered what motherhood is like for those who have only sons, especially if they didn’t have brothers while growing up. It must be like rearing aliens.
Your boys are the lucky ones, and all the kids in your neighborhood know it.
Every neighborhood has one. Ours was Mrs. Males.
Henry Adams wrote something I put up in the corner of my desk for a year. I didn’t like it, but couldn’t throw it away. Eventually, I accepted it as another truth that would not exist if only God let me make the universe–
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
You could have found habit after your first son, but which parts of you would not exist?
Daphne,
In some ways you were almost describing me, as the father of three daughters, two already grown. Been parenting for 23 of my 43 years. Trust me, girls are just as capable of destroying the house as boys.
And yes, you never stop being a parent. I take a certain satisfaction in the fact that my girls still ask for my advice on matters.
Don’t feel guilty for sometimes wondering if the grass is greener on the other side. That’s just human nature. But don’t believe for a moment that some of those people don’t envy you for having what they do not.
And no matter what, you have stuck with your boys. I choose to believe you are a good mother, and James is right, all their friends know it, too. We make mistakes along the way (after all, they don’t come with owners manuals), but we learn from those mistakes, and forge on.
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Buckskins stole my thunder, re: there are those people who envy you. Rest assured this is true.
re: “…settling into the demands with little perceived effort or sacrifice.” I think the key word is “perceived” in this sentence. I’ve known some Moms who could definitely stand some improvement where their mothering skills were concerned, yet they seemed to float effortlessly through the “mom thing.” My perception about their mothering skills and theirs differed greatly; their children reflected a lack of effort, as well.
OTOH, the best Moms I’ve known who seemingly did it all sans effort were just highly skilled at presenting that sort of public face, IMHO. The husbands of two of my mom friends in this class had some great stories in this space, believe me. Public vs private, and all that.
You have an inordinate amount of self-knowledge, Daphne. That alone tells me that you are a great Mom (well, this post helped, too). And I KNOW your boys think so… even though it’s just my gut telling me that.
Parenthood emotions tend to ebb and flow in terms of whether we are doing too much or not enough, as if we can create the bubble around them or are 100% responsible for how they adjust or do not adjust.
You lads are lucky and I can say that without ever meeting them.
Quite a span of personalities there. Kids are neat!
..and our own are always special. :)
Boy, can I ever relate to some of this.
Damn good writing Daphne. Should be required reading in ever Lamaze class.
I have the best commenters on the internet – wonderful people who think I’m not such a bad person despite my faults.
I thank you all for the kindness, it’s appreciated more than you than you’ll ever know.
We all have faults, Daphne. But they need not define who we are. As long as we learn from them, and don’t repeat them (at least not too many times!).
Your willingness to bare you soul to friends whom you’ve never met, combined with your eloquent writing on various and a sundry topics, leads me to believe that you are, in fact, a good person.
I would venture to say that your friends and family would say that their lives are all the better for having known you.
Know why I keep reading you? It’s because you keep surprising me with how well you write. Your writing reminds me of someone, but I just put my finger on it about halfway through this post. Your writing reminds me of Pat Conroy’s, especially in The Prince of Tides. He has a certain rythmn in his writing. James Lee Burke has it as well. So do you, especially when you talk about family or your childhood.
My family thinks I’m a pain in the ass, my friends pass as we naturally grow apart. I have a need to write these things and I’m astounded that anyone finds it worthwhile, that you do means a lot to me.
I tend to not make the same mistakes twice, although my first efforts at fucking up are usually spectacular.
I am a good person, but I’ve got a multitude of flaws, character defects and lack of social lie-telling that repulse most women and scare some men. I’m not an easy woman in many respects.
Pat Conroy is one of my favorite writers, Prince Of Tides struck deep bells, Burke holds a solid second tier status in my library. Good ear, Midtown. If I could ever manage a close simile of some Proulx, Faulkner duet, I would be a sublimely happy camper.
I read you because you paint vivid pictures and emotions – your stories are visceral, well told with emotional punctuation points striking the right chords. You write from the gut and let me see it. I like that about you MM – you write with honesty.
In the literate society of Dr. Johnson’s Eighteenth Century it would be acknowldged simply that you have all the strengths of your defects.
Thank you, James. That’s a high compliment.