There is a gap between the mother I am and the mother I want to be. More like a yawning chasm. I’m not talking about the fact that I’d like to be more patient, bake more cookies, speak fluent Spanish, feed them freshly-prepared, organic food and actually enjoy craft projects. Some of the mommy guilt is valid and I strive to be better when I can. Some of it is media-driven crap, frankly, and I try to recognize it for what it is and weed it out when I can.
I’m talking about a real gap, soul deep. A resounding clash of ideology and reality.
The mother I want to be encourages exploration and adventure. She thinks this world is a head-over-heels beautiful, exciting place and she wants her kids to see it and touch it and taste it and love it like she does. She’s backpacked the world and she wants to travel with her kids. Two of her best friends live in Africa right this moment and, without hesitating, she packs up her young children and seizes the opportunity to experience that continent with them. (The mother I want to be has unlimited funds, I should mention.)
The mother I am, poor girl, is still reeling. She got knocked off kilter when the doctor placed her newborn son in her trembling arms three years ago and she hasn’t quite righted herself yet. Everyone told her about the love. How it would change her, how she couldn’t possibly know until she knew. They forgot to mention the stark raving terror. Or maybe they did and I just didn’t listen.
I hear Africa and think, Ebola Zaire, it makes you bleed from your eyes. I know that contracting a horrible disease is an infinitesimal risk. A risk I laughed at, when it was my health that was at stake. Now, I quake. What if? For them, I would give up Africa, all travel, if I really thought that was where the big risks lay. But, my brain knows it is not true, that my fragile heart deceives me. My brain knows that merging onto the local highway, when I feel so confident in my illusion of control, is the real place of terrors.
I would pad their entire lives if I thought it would keep them free from pain. I cry with Marlin EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME when he says, I promised him nothing would ever happen to him and Dory tells him, But, then NOTHING would EVER happen to him. It’s like Milli Vanilli lip synced when I was a teen (I went to a concert, talk about pain) – the joy and pain, like sunshine and rain. What is one really without the other? What is life without both?
The mother I want to be has children who are bold. She raises eager learners who, while careful, are rarely timid. They’ve been shown that life is to be savored and new experiences are the spice that seasons it. They don’t fear mountain slopes covered in snow the way she does. They revel in the speed and adrenaline, secure in their abilities. They don’t fear failure because they understand that it paves the road to success.
Her children are as comfortable around horses as she is. They have learned the dangers and the way to handle themselves and they are safe – as safe as we ever are in the world. She watches their riding lessons full of joy. She wants them to know the feeling of a partnership with an animal of such power and the peace of riding through nature without the hum of motors.
The mother I am can barely watch the lessons. Their instructor takes them into the field to catch Hank, a gentle, quiet giant. A simple task I have executed a thousand times. They listen to her. They are quiet and slow. They walk to his head and not behind him. And yet. And yet I stand at the fence with my heart in my mouth and my stomach near my knees.
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I don’t see patient Hank, nudging their pockets with his muzzle. I see the quick flash of hooves if he were frightened. I see who would lose the battle between his 500 pound mass and my 30 pound toddlers. I see them crumpled on the ground. The risks are small. But, they aren’t none. They are never none, are they?
“Look momma,” they call, beside themselves with glee when Candy, the other horse in the field, approaches. She nibbles Gee’s hair and he cannot contain his delight. He shrieks giggles and she pulls back, startled.
“Softly baby,” I remind him. “Quiet voices around the horses.”
“It’s okay momma.” Yes, it is. Don’t mind me, I’m just over here nursing the gaping hole in my soul.
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I don’t think I let it show. I won’t instill my fears in them. Caution, yes, and knowledge. The horses are big. They can hurt with their feet. Use gentle voices. Be aware of where you are standing. Caution and knowledge are not the same as fear.
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Meanwhile, all I can do is pretend. I pretend that my heart hasn’t ceased to beat and my every breath doesn’t hurt. I want them to live every moment, but, oh, how I want to protect them while they are doing it. So, I remind them. Cars can’t see you. Horses are very strong. Strangers aren’t always nice people. I pad what I can with five point harnesses, helmets, airbags and words. At their root, my fears are selfish, selfish things. It’s not that they can be taken out of this world that strikes the worst fear in me. We all live with that truth. It’s that I could be left behind. My deepest fear is trying to survive in a world that had them in it and lost them.
that was absolutely beautiful. i am those same exact two mothers. (except not as well traveled)
and a horse person to boot.
amazingly written. thanks.
and i think hank looks like a saint. those horses are so much more aware of us than we often think. i’m sure your children are in fine hands and hooves. lucky mama, lucky kiddos.
This post, especially the last paragraph, brought tears to my eyes because it verbalizes the very thing that I fear the most. For me, it also works conversely; I fear them living their lives without me. Actually, Them without me is my greatest fear, and me without them is my second greatest fear.
Oh you made me bawl! It’s true what they say about parenting not being for wimps.
I’d go hug my babies right now, but one is camping with another family and the I’m waiting for the other to drive herself home from a party in the dark. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t get any better as they get older.
I think the important thing here is that you are closer to being the mother you want to be than you think. You DO send your babies out into the scary world, despite your fears. That says loving mom to me.
You girls are up way too late – me too, it’s the only time the house is actually quiet.
Jen – Hank is a saint, really, he’s just a really big saint.
Kym – Yes, that too.
Susan – I was afraid of that. I think I’ll lie awake and worry when they are forty – I know my mom is nodding right now. And, yes, I send them out, there’s no other way, right?
That last bit made me cry. That old quote about your heart walking around outside your body is true, but the degree to which it’s true is something you just can’t fathom until it happens.
That said, I think it does get a bit easier to let them expand their horizons as they grow, once you are able to see how capable and confident they’re getting. Of course there’s a 2 or 3 year lag in what they want to do vs what you’re prepared to let them do, but that goes with the territory ;-).
You only have to watch the news to get a reminder of just how scary the world can be. Seems like such an uphill battle – to prepare our children for the good and bad in life and knowing that we can’t always be there…standing at the fence. My mother still has me call her when I drive from her house back to mine at night. It always annoyed me to have to do it – but when I had my first baby I suddenly understood.
This post is so beautiful and so true. My kids are older than yours, and I still feel the same way. It reminds me of Anne Lamott’s “Operating Instructions” where her prayers about her son change and whittle down to “Let me not outlive him.”
Btw, is it me, or do those horses have porn star names?
Keep being that honest with yourself and you’ll make it… it truly is so much worse when they are older… and DONT see the need for those seat belts, helmets, or any danger in the world whatsoever! Because you are old (not really, they just think we are, birthday, ya know) and know NOTHING! AHHHH!!!
Pam
Wow. I think you just hit so many things head on. I know exactly what you are talking about. Lovely post!
Lovely post thank you. You “hit the nail on the head” as the saying goes.
Written from the heart of a true mother……
Oh my gosh – YES to it all!!
lovely post!!
Any Mommy…you have done it again! Man to have your writing skills to convey so articulately what has been going on in my heart as of late.
Brevin has been gone at the age of 2 for a span of 2 weeks in July…many moms ask “Don’t you miss him? I could NEVER do that!” You took the words right out of my heart in your last paragraph…I never ever want my fears to transfer to him…so I do some pretending too…but not when he calls me screaming in the phone how much fun he is having “fishing, going under water, driving the boat…” I relish in those squeals with him that he gets to experience so many wonderful things this world DOES have to offer. I tear up, but smile at the thought of these same phone calls in high school, college, traveling in some far off place, to tell me about his own first child…ahhhh.
WOW – such a great post! Actually, I feel that way about pretty much every single thing you write… You are amazing, both as a writer and a mother!
I really needed to read this this morning. Thank you!
I think I will read it every single Monday morning for the next 18 years.
You are a blessing…..
It is such a balance, isn’t it? Letting them go and try new things while keeping them “safe”. But you have to do it or they’ll NEVER LEAVE (lol).
I can’t imagine what would be worse, me without them or them without me. Either way makes me want to cry.
Great post!
Lovely writing sweet friend! I feel it too.
What a great writer you are.
I feel the same way, but could’ve never expressed it that well.
I’ve tried not to transfer my fears onto my children, but my 7 yr old is scared to death to feed a horse….when we go to the Sanctuary, she loves to look at them, maybe pet them, but she will NOT feed them. She’s terrified of bugs (to the extreme) and I’m not, so I don’t know how that came about. Maybe it’s nature and not nurture?
I do my best to overcome these fears and it does get better as the kids get older, but I identify with your post completely.
I am with you on this one. One of the things I am most proud of in MiniMe is his sense of adventure and reckless abandon. It’s also the thing that terrifies me most about every being more than arm’s length away from him.
For me, the chasm grows smaller with each passing year. I hope you find (as it did for me) that you grow more comfortable with the dichotomy as the years go by.
It’s not that it gets easier – if anything, it gets harder. Watching my 8 year old navigate the social scene of elementary school is sometimes heartbreaking. Watching my 5 year old grow frustrated when reading is not coming as easily to him as his older brother (and hot on his heels, his also “book smart” younger sister) is painful. It’s always painful and scary and crushing to watch your children experience disappointment or pain, and I can only imagine how it will be during adolescence.
But what is getting easier is MY role in it, my own responses, my own involvement. I guess everything really does get easier with practice, even parenting. It’s hard, but it seems more comfortable and familiar than it did during those early years, when not only did I struggle with the reality of who I was as a mother with who I wanted to be, but I wasn’t entirely sure of what those roles even looked like.
Great post, as always!
Ugh! I know just how you feel! My son is not even 10 months old and already his sense of adventure and fearlessness makes me excited and scared to death at the same time! And you have that times three!
Beautifully written!
That was a beautiful post. I think about those same things every day. How do I balance Bunny’s inquisitive, fearless nature with the fear that I have for her. I know she will get hurt but I don’t want to see it.
I want it to be like the commercial were everything is covered in bubble wrap. But its not and I’ve got to get over it.
Oh, so beautiful and thoughtful! I felt every word…these kids just rip our hearts out, don’t they?
For a bit of comic relief: my mom, all thru my high school years, would leave her bedside light on and I had to come wake her up to say I was home. One night I came in to do that and she woke up enough to look at me and say, what’s wrong with your shirt? I looked down (and I SO vividly remember what I was wearing; it was a USD sweatshirt and blue striped shorts), went to straighten out the hem of the tshirt that was peeking out from underneath said USD sweatshirt and …out came my **whole** tshirt. Can you say making out in the back of a car, didn’t get my tshirt back on when I pulled my SS back on?! It was horribly embarrassing. I tucked tail and ran. I’m 34 and still think about it although now it makes me laugh.
Sorry if that is TMI or takes away from the loveliness of your post, Stacey, but I thought maybe you’d laugh at what we have to look forward to on those late nights!
S-
It is always so encouraging to hear that others have the same “mommy-fears” I do. I never thought I could love anyone so quickly and perfectly in all my life, and the thought of anyone/anything hurting my baby boys is paralyzing sometimes. I even cry thinking about preschool next year… what if someone is MEAN to him? But I’m learning to let go just a little and maybe accept the fact that I’m not going to be able to protect them from everything life has in store for them…but only a little. ; )
You’re amazing! How is it that you get inside all of our heads and then manage to put what you see and feel while there on paper (or blog, in this case)? You just summed up so many of my fears and feelings…thank you!
Goose bumps, nods of understanding and agreement! As always, you rock!
Thak You!
Kateri
You put words to what is in my heart. Thanks for doing it so beautifully. What a great start to the week.
I can relate to this so much.
I took the morning off from the computer and just came back to all these awesome comments. You make me laugh and cry. I’m all warm and fuzzy and now I can tackle the afternoon.
Marinka – They do seem porn starish. Remember that game in jr high, your porn star alias was supposed to be your pet’s name plus the street you lived on. Mine was Penny Redrock. Nice.
Dysfun Mom – Isn’t funny how they have fears you don’t even have. My son is terrified of giants?! Now that’s not one I worry about too much.
Nissa – It did make me laugh. I fear those years for a whole different reason. I remember what I was like and I deserve the worst they have to offer!
Sigh.. No. It doesn’t get any easier. Teaching caution without fear is the continuing struggle every “good” mother goes through. Just the fact that you can acknowledge the conflict is proof that you ARE a good mom.
We can take care of this! Let’s move to Africa – we’ve got legal, medical and stock-plieing, chicken killing bases covered!
:) Great post.
I thought I knew fear until I became a mother, it’s such a deeper level of uncertainty. Beautiful post!
That was a beautiful post from beginning to end. You really do have a wonderful way of expressing motherhood with your writing.
Yep, I want it all but I want to risk and give up nothing. I’m still trying to figure that mix out, and I know I’m not even close right now. And I don’t know that I’ll manage to get there. But every day I try. And from what I read of you… you’re doing a great job!
Man, we are two posters thinking the same thoughts. I would cry if I wasn’t so hopped up on Zoloft. It’s so difficult this transition from wherever you are: tattooed drummer, struggling writer, educated fast tracked lawyer or world traveler to mother, mom, mommy…and there’s no going back. We’re done – at least emotionally. Physically, we can convince ourselves to continue to live lives of adverture but we will ALWAYS FROM NOW ON be aware of the risks.
Yay, I’m glad you found me and I found you too. I think we have a good deal in common (recovering lawyer here, too). I’ll catch up on your story while you read mine.
Beautiful post. I feel it too. And Lucy’s not even walking yet. Oh, when she does…
I think we all feel this way, daily. I know for sure that *I* do, and it only gets harder as they get older.
(On a side note – I followed Kym’s link here… I had some giggles reading older posts, and wanted to reach out and hug you through others.)
Gorgeous, beautiful, lovely post my friend. I say that to you a lot, but I mean it every time.
How many times do I say “be careful” and “watch out” when I really want them to go through life sure of themselves? I know the only way to get that
This was beautiful and heart-breaking.
Are you living in my head? I have these horrible morbid thoughts all the time about things that could happen to my girls. I hate to admit that. It’s all out of fear. When I share them with my husband, he’s like, “God, it must suck being so afraid all the time.” It does. I just started reading the book “Buddhism for Mothers.” Hope it will help, even just a bit.
My oldest is actually a very cautious child. I hardly have to worry about her wandering off from me because I just know she won’t. I should probably be doing things that help her explore more, but secretly I love that she’s so careful. The baby, on the other hand … she’s still too young to say what she’ll be like, but she gets this glimmer in her eyes sometimes that scares me to death!!
Nice post, Stacey.
http://www.pennycarnival.typepad.com
There is a little place in your heart where fear lives. It will always be there, sleeping right beside the joy and wonder.
and, p.s., you’ve DEFINITELY earned a bookmark. sniff, sniff.
wonderful post. beautifully written
This was a beautiful heartfelt post. My girls are grown now and I still fear for them.
I come from Shell's blog and I'm glad she sent me. :)
Beautiful post. Glad to have been led to your blog to read it. I think all mom's hope to see their children grow up safe. It's a tough job on so many levels.
There's not a mom anywhere that doesn't feel these things sometimes. Take me, for instance. I am currently waiting for my daughter to return from a week long trip out of town. They are driving back today….in the rain….in the wind….I know they'll be perfectly fine, and I will be too….as soon as I know they're home.
Of course, she is 43 years old and married and a mother herself! Doesn't matter, I won't be truly at ease until I know they are home!
It never goes away. My mother used to tell me "It doesn't matter if you live to be 100 years old, you'll always be my little girl." Yep, that's about it!
Damn, I wish they'd call!
What a beautiful post, you have such an amazing way with words. You talk for so many mothers out there.
Visiting from Shell's blog. So glad you sent me. This is a wonderful post filled with powerful truths. I, too, am not the mom I wish I was. The mom I want to be deep in my soul. I think others have said it well that these are experiences that all moms have at one time or another. Great post!
Wow, Shell is right, what you say does matter, and it is absolutely beautiful
That was so amazingly beautiful! I feel exactly the same way. How do you let children live their lives without instilling in them the fear that we carry around with us as mothers. My daughter almost lost her eye this week (TRUE STORY) by running into a coat hanger. Accidents are going to happen. I struggle with not being able to control every aspect of my kids' lives. We do what we can to keep them safe, but in the end, what is going to happen is going to happen.
I am so glad that Shell sent me your way. I can't wait to read more about you.
I stumbled on your blog a couple of days ago and have become hooked! I am in love with mommy blogs, and yours does an amazing job of eloquently putting into words so many of the same things I think/feel/celebrate/struggle with daily. Thank you for this…it is my little gift I give myself away from the craziness of 3 little ones. There's a mommy over here and she's now become a major fan! Xoxo Allison