February 19, 2005 3:35 PM
Motherhood -- It's all about choice
From the last couple days' comments, it seems I've made a couple people nauseous by mentioning that I love children and motherhood involves sacrifice. If you were here, I'd fix you some ginger tea.
Maybe I should share a little bit about where I'm coming from. Because I'm considered in some circles to be a parenting expert, people make assumptions -- like that I grew up in a wonderful -- maybe even privileged -- middle-class home. That's not the case. By the time I was 6, I'd lived in six different places, including Atlanta, Alaska, and Long Beach. Why? Because my dad ran up bills in one town and moved on to another (before computers). When he left my mom with three kids (I was oldest), she brought us to Washington, DC and put us in a foster home where we were abused emotionally and physically. When we came home to live with my mom in a one-bedroom apartment where she slept on the couch, we rarely saw her. She worked several jobs to support us (the good), but she was consumed by problems with alcohol and men (the bad and the ugly). We were poor as in no-car-and-sometimes-not-enough-to-eat poor.
My mom did not like me. She was brought up in an Irish family where the boys were prized and the girls were put down. Unfortunately, she didn't overcome that. Since people then didn't seem to have the same self-analysis skills, I think she couldn't help who she was.
All I knew growing up was that I wanted out. Education seemed the key, so that's where I put my energy. I got a scholarship to a Catholic high school and became a National Merit Scholar (which in those days was pretty embarrassing). I had a few years of college (which I finished up in my thirties) and had Montessori training.
Leaving out many, many, details I will say that the part of me trying to succeed was always struggling with the self-destructive part based on the emptiness inside from the lack of love and spiritual foundation in my life. I eventually became a welfare mother, fag hag, and serial drug addict -- dragging my two daughters Samantha Sunshine and Jasmine Moondance through all kinds of craziness in San Francisco.
That was my own period of Me-First mothering, for which I've apologized to my daughters and for which they've graciously forgiven me. Thank God today they are healthy, happy, loving and spiritually grounded mothers themselves. Samantha has five children and Jasmine has four. Through God's grace, we have a very close relationship.
I think there were a lot of Boomer mothers like my mother and me -- mothers who put themselves first. And I think a lot of today's mothers are feeling the effects and reacting. Maybe that's where this trying to be the perfect mother described in Mommy Madness comes from. Maybe it's where the young mothers who get nauseous from hearing someone say they are willing to sacrifice for their kids come from.
What makes my life different is that I was given a second chance. After giving up drugs and at the beginning of my spiritual journey I married a younger man, who took on the responsibility of raising Samantha and Jasmine from 13 and 7. Though we were using birth control -- and I was supposed to be sterile because of a chlamydia-based abscess which had hospitalized me for two weeks in my worst-excess days -- we gave birth to two boys. That's when we realized that part of our spiritual journey -- the purpose for our lives -- was to raise the healthiest family we possibly could. We had seven birth children altogether, then adopted three.
Not everyone is called to do this kind of thing. But I think the lessons I learned are worth sharing.
One is that when you haven't received adequate mothering, it doesn't come naturally to give it. I had to come to terms with the fact that I actually did not know how to be a good mother. I used to go to the park and watch mothers and kids -- not with disdain like Judith Warner, but to try to learn from mothers who were farther along than I. I admired good mothers.
At the heart of my desire was maybe something like the Golden Rule. I kept looking at it like this: How would I have wanted to be treated as a child? In a way, I was more fortunate than people who had so-so mothering because I was so hungry to provide emotional and spiritual health for my kids.
My training reinforced that of course, because Montessori teachers are taught to look at everything from children's eyes. When one mother commented that it's okay for mothers to whine so they can get things off their chest, I wonder if she lets her children whine. I've always hated double standards when it comes to kids. My mother always bought butter for herself and made the kids eat margarine (which tasted putrid back in those days -- don't know how it tastes now because I only buy butter for my family ;-) I think it's important for kids to know we hold ourselves to the same standard we demand of them.
As a radical leftist and 70's feminist, I was always angry about something, always expecting the government to play God and create some kind of utopia. Today I feel more a sense of personal responsibility. Why was I able to overcome my past and create something good with my life, while one of my brothers has been on house arrest for years for abusing his daughter? We both came from the same rotten background. He chose one path. I chose another.
It's all about personal choice. For that reason, it's hard for me to understand blaming others for the situation in which you find yourself. If you don't like carting your kids around to extracurricular activites, then skip them. If you have too much housework, let some go. Look for people who inspire you and make you feel better about your situation.
The one part I would go along with in the article is that mothers need to stop being so hard on themselves and so competitive. That's not the kind of mothering I'm talking about. If you read other entries in Mommy Life, you'll find that I'm all about encouraging mommies and offering practical ideas to help them release the potential joy in these wonderful/terrible/mixed-up years when our children are little (I still have seven at home).
The important thing is that the future of your family and your children starts with a decision: What kind of mother do I want to be?
Posted in Culture, Current Affairs, Inspiration, Marriage, Mothering, Toddlers | Permalink
Comments
Thank you for sharing that.
Posted by: Mel | February 19, 2005 4:35 PM
Is it just me or did my comment from earlier disappear? Did I say something wrong? Just slightly puzzled here.
Posted by: Square1 | February 19, 2005 9:45 PM
I'm sorry -- there were four comments I think and two had said the font was too small on my post. So I was trying to edit it, but I'm having a hard time each time I do anything new with this medium and when I came to a dead end on editing, I just resubmitted, thereby losing the comments. To be fair, one was quite negative, but I still wouldn't have erased it. So, by all means, feel free to rewrite.
Posted by: barbara curtis | February 19, 2005 11:44 PM
I am sure you are talking about my comment, being "quite negative" which I totally disagree with.
All I was saying was that not all mothers become drug addicts and make bad choices in men just because they spend some time putting their own needs first. Plenty of mothers have found a way to balance their needs with those of their children. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I also wondered if you really didn't know any women who had found this balance.
And then I commented on my own mother, who made those mom sacrifices you have mentioned several times, and how my brother and I still hear about how she sacrificed herself for us today.
And then I went on to talk about how being a decent human being requires sacrifice, being a sister, aunt, friend, neighbor, mother, wife, and employee. The sacrifices a mother makes are no bigger or more important than those a father makes. I really, really can't help but to roll my eyes when women start talking about how being a mother means one has to sacrifice, blah blah blah. Talk about whinning!
Posted by: smoov | February 20, 2005 12:12 AM
I don't think mine was the negative comment, and thanks for upping the font size.
Posted by: Anvilcloud | February 20, 2005 9:55 AM
I wanted to thank you for your comment on my blog, and for pointing me towards yours. I've really enjoyed reading what you've written since you've started this blog, and I look forward to reading your blog in the future. You've given me a lot to think about, and I'm so glad you took the time to point me this direction.
Posted by: Amber | February 22, 2005 12:11 PM
