The Parent Hood

What’s in a name?

Well, if the name is some version of a word that refers to that woman who gave you birth (or in some cases the one whom you love as much even if she didn’t give birth to you herself), there is a lot evidently.

In honor of Mother’s Day, I thought I’d talk a little bit about the progression of this name in my household.  The snapshot of the moment looks like this:  Mom, Mom, Mother, Mommy, Mama (or Mom-mom).  That’s what my girls call me.  I know there will be a day when they will all probably call me just Mom, assuming they call me at all.  Right now, I’m rather holding onto some of the other titles hoping they don’t pass me by too quickly without me appreciating them enough.

It all starts out pretty much the same.  A cute bubble-blowing baby who is fascinated with her toes will one day utter a syllable that may be just about anything but to a mother’s ear, it is MA.  And she goes crazy!  She said my name!  I heard it!  The baby said MA!  (This, for the record, is even sweeter if the baby hasn’t yet said DA.)  Eventually, that syllable does resemble the word Ma.  How sweet is it to know that your baby recognizes you through language?

Eventually Ma becomes Mama.  Oh, I love Mama.  It’s baby talk, but it’s clearly, indisputably, a designation for only ME.  I am Mama.  The word Mama comes out when she cries and is in need of comfort.  Mama is called upon to rescue her when her sister is trying to color her in with markers or roll her up in the rug.  Mama is important and necessary, all-knowing and all-doing.  Mama is a good phase.  I love being Mama.

The transition from babyhood to toddlerhood, in this house, seems to be marked by my moniker changing from Mama to Mommy.  I don’t really understand how they all know to do this, but they do.  Maybe from books or TV?  However it happens, each time it does happen.  I turn from Mama to Mommy and I’m OK with this.  Mommy is still cute, it retains some of its babyishness.

I know a few things about why Mommy might become preferred to Mama.  It is easier for a tantruming daughter to draw it out into a full wail “Moooommmeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…….”  It’s easier to repeat a million times in a row while pulling on my pant leg and trying to get me to talk to her instead of the person on the phone.  “Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy?”  It’s easier to scream from the bathroom in desperation “MOMMEEEEEEE- I need you to WIPE me!”

There are days I never want to hear Mommy again.  There are days I swear if I hear it even just ONE more time, my head would literally explode right there (literally!).

But then one day Mommy gives way to Mom and it takes me only about 2 seconds to miss Mommy and yearn to have it back.  I think the transition from Mommy to Mom means something but I can’t quite put my finger on it.  It means I’ve become less important, somehow.  I’m needed less.  I’ve gone from 2 syllables to 1 – my role diminished just like my title.  I’m just MOM.  Instead of being her everything, instead of being in the starring role, I’m suddenly just the stage manager.  Behind the scenes.  Necessary to make it all happen but not called out for a bow at the end of the day.

It’s only when Mom gives way to Mother (or, more accurately, muh-THER! said with that exact right amount of girl-attitude) that I miss Mom.  Gawd, I hate the muh-THER phase.  Ugh.  If you’re lucky, that doesn’t last too terribly long.  Following that, one is happy to be returned to Mom status once again.

Then, as they get bigger and busier and more independent and less available, sometimes you’re just glad to be called upon at all.  Even if it’s “Hey, you.” well, you’ll take it.  That’s why college kids get away with sucking up so much cash from their parents.  It’s the way the parent continues to hear her name.  “Mom, can I have some cash to get me through until payday?”  “Mom, I can’t quite cover rent, can you help me out?”  And you’re glad to because, well, because she said that magic word.  MOM.

I know that there is this attitude that motherhood isn’t well-appreciated in this country, in this world.  That our value isn’t fully recognized.  That it’s somehow not enough to identify ourselves as “just” moms, or to be stay-at-home moms, or mommy bloggers or whatever.

To me, it’s enough.  When someone asks me who I am, I identify myself as Linda, wife and mother.  Those are the roles that define me.  The rest of the roles I play are just supporting ones.  My starring role, the one I want on the playbill, is MOM, MOTHER, MOMMY, MAMA, MA.  And no matter what my child calls me, when I look at her I clearly see every age and every stage of her life… I see her as a baby, a toddler, a preschooler, a child, a pre-teen, a teen, and in a couple of wonderful cases, I already get to see my child as a grown woman.

I don’t care what they call me, as long as they call me.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mamas and mommies and mammies and mothers and matres and whatever-other-name you might be called.

Plus a very special postscript to those of you who are mothers to be, those trying to get pregnant, those who get pregnant easily but have had difficulty staying pregnant, those who are trying to adopt, those who are both trying to get pregnant and trying to adopt…  To anyone who has motherhood in her heart but not yet in her life or had motherhood in her life and lost it – I think of you and wish nothing more than swift success in your journey and peace in your hearts.  Happy Mother’s Day to you, too.  I hope that one day soon your arms embrace the results of your heart’s most precious wish.

And another shout out to those who are missing their own mothers, either because they’ve left this world or in cases where they are still here yet physically or emotionally far-removed.  It’s surely difficult for you to mourn that which you do not have while also trying to celebrate that which you do.  Strength to you…

Man, this motherhood stuff is complex, huh?

I was never one of those women who stated that I wouldn’t drive a minivan. I spent years being envious of minivans. In fact, there was a time I had to squeeze three children in a Ford Escort 2-door with no stereo and no A/C. I lusted after minivans the way a Susan Lucci lusted after that daytime Emmy award.

When we got our first one, I was in heaven. Oh, but it was nice. Plenty of room for the kids and their friends. Me, up front on my throne where I could open and close all the windows and lock and unlock all the doors. I was like an egomaniacal dictator driving around in my own little country on wheels. “Quiet!” I would shout, “Or I shall fade the stereo from front to back and blast Simon and Garfunkel into your young and impressionable ears!”

The thing about having a lot of space is that, well, you have a lot of SPACE. And, oh luxury, oh opulence! I could fill that space with stuff. I had jackets and blankets and strollers and tool kits and toys and…. and well, it just kept going. The other thing about having a lot of space is that there is no incentive to take things OUT because, well, there is still more space.

Being one of those working moms (and yes, I do realize that ALL moms are working moms but I’m that kind that loses ten hours a day to a professional commitment that does not include taking care of my house or family which provides me with a paycheck that allows me to spend all my left over time [and by that I mean about 35 minutes per day] taking care of my house and family). So where was I? Oh, yeah, being one of them there working moms, I spend a lot of my life in my car.

I mean, there’s always something going on, right? Girl scouts or volley ball or gymnastics or PTO or something. How I managed to stay out of PTO for the past 18 years, I’ll never know but I’m in it now and I even have a project to manage. Let this be a warning to you – NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN! So I leave work and grab a child or two or three and on our way to wherever we’re going we need to grab dinner on the run.

There is a law about dinners on the run – somehow they must always include French fries. Yeah, the Senate passed it by a two-thirds majority and thank goodness the damn conservatives didn’t get their way, trying to go with mashed potatoes, but see? the liberals ARE good for something after all so French fries it is. So we worship at the alter of the Golden Arches, for they are the greatest damn marketing geniuses in all of the land putting their dumb little toys in their happy little meals so the children whine louder and louder until the mommy gives in and says “Yes, for the love of all that is holy, we will go to McDonalds if you’ll just – shush – up.” (Did you see that little mommy trick? I didn’t tell them to shut up – I told them to shush up. Had I said shut up you all would have called me a bad mommy but even GOOD mommies say shush, right?)

So my point is, me all proud in my minivan and it seeing more food in it than the Meals-on-Wheels truck and then the French fry law and all, well, it was pretty bad back there. But up front where *I* sit, all is well. Up in my throne, there are no French fries. So I rarely pay any attention to them. Maybe I vacuum it out every time a democrat is elected to office. But I’m relaxed; I’m a laid back kind of chick, so I don’t worry.

So where am I going with this?

Well, I was going to have to drive the PTO ladies to some PTO thing and so I thought I’d better manage the French fries, you know, since it’s the first time that non-child human beings would be riding in the mommy van in a long, long time.

So I pull into the car wash vacuum thingie (see? I do it so seldom, I don’t even know what it’s called) and, to my horror, here’s what I found:

~ twelve pounds of French fries
~ seventeen pacifiers
~ a group of Japanese tourists
~ an active colony of mushrooms, possibly psychedelic
~ the never-mailed letter to NBC outlining my fresh idea for a reality show with Donald Trump
~ Jimmy Hoffa

It wasn’t pretty.

So what’s the moral of this story? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it is DO NOT LET THEM ROPE YOU INTO JOINING THE PTO! (It probably should be more along the lines of keeping your car neat and tidy but hello, I’m Linda, have we met!)

I’m not a big watcher of Reality TV. However, I don’t live in a mud hut on an isolated mountaintop, so I am aware of the madness that is Survivor.

And I laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. You want to see a survival story? Come to to a house with young children. Maybe multiple children. Maybe where both parents work. Oh, and toss in a few pets. I’ll show you some survival. I’d like to see some of those wimps survive a week in our shoes.

They think foraging for berries and eating bugs is hard? I have one child who lives on carpet fuzz and dog kibble with the occasional Lego for variety. There is no nutritional value to Legos, but they do seem to fill her up for awhile. As her mother, it’s my responsibility to discourage that sort of thing but sometimes I just appreciate the roughage she gets from them and move on.

Think not having hot running water is a challenge? Fight with a 9-year-old about why proper hygiene is important and how boys won’t ever want to kiss h in a few years if she doesn’t start taking showers. At least on some remote island, one has a good excuse for being filthy. There isn’t an animal on that island that is as persistent in getting its way as my middle child. She’s relentless.

And if you think sleeping on a straw mat is tough, try sleeping with a crackling, static-y baby monitor next to your ear for years on end. Add in a cosleeping toddler, being woken a few times a night to go on a pacifier hunt so you can plug up the baby, oh, and then toss in a few toddler night terrors each week (I’d welcome an animal of prey over those scary things). I’m sure after all that you’d be thinking that the straw mat on the ground of a remote island is a REM sleep paradise!

How do you know if you are in Mommy Survival Mode? Take this quiz:

1. If you catch your baby eating out of the dog food bowl, do you:
a. Say “Ewwww” and move her away from it.
b. Put the bowl up where she cannot reach.
c. Let her continue, call it “lunch” and finish folding the load of laundry.

2. If your toddler wants to watch the Dora the Explorer marathon on, do you:
a. Agree to 30 minutes max and then engage her in making a design on construction paper using uncooked pasta and glue.
b. Agree to a 1 hour max and then take her to the park so she forgets.
c. Let her watch it all day so you can rest and then tell your friends she spent the day learning a second language.

3. If your child catches a nasty cold do you:
a. Make homemade chicken noodle soup and spoon feed him lovingly.
b. Run to the store for ginger ale and popsicles on the way home from the doctor’s office.
c. Secretly rejoice that the cold medicine will knock him on his ass and you’ll get to have a little happy-nap, too.

4. When the subject of co-sleeping comes up, do you:
a. Drone on and on about security and closeness and the value of the family bed.
b. Quote statistics about how your child is safer by sleeping next to you and synchronizing her breathing patterns to yours.
c. State that you’d be willing to let your child sleep on the median of Highway I-44 if it meant just a few more minutes of sleep for yourself.

5. When undertaking a necessary outing to the grocery store, do you:
a. Dress baby up in those cute and expensive adorable outfits hanging in the closet.
b. Make sure to grab some of those colorful Linkadoo toys for her to play with in the shopping cart.
c. Put a bib on to cover up the stained Onesie and let her bring a 9 volt alkaline battery to chew on and keep her quiet.

If your answer was C to 3 or more of these, you might be in mommy survival mode, too.

A few more clues you may be a potential Mommy Survivor Candidate:

• If it smells, you Fabreeze it, even if it is 3 ½ years old, wiggly, and protests.
• You clean your entire house with baby wipes. In fact, at this point in time, you think baby wipes are the single most useful thing ever invented.
• While others may think you use that baby sling to keep a close bond to your infant, you know that you use it so no one can see that the baby is always wearing pajamas, and not very clean ones, at that.
• You pretend the reason you are an avid breast feeder is because of the nutritional superiority and bonding opportunity, but in fact you made your decision solely on the benefit of being able to sleep while feeding the baby.
• When the naked baby pooped on the floor and you ran her to the bathroom to wash her up, you were secretly glad upon returning that the dog was eating the poop – one less thing for you to clean up.
• When reading a bedtime story, you skip pages when the toddler isn’t looking. When the toddler gets old enough to be wise to the page skipping trick, you start just skipping words and sentences on the page. When the child is on to you for this one, you tell her “I think the time has come for you to read quietly to yourself in bed at night.”
• You secretly fantasize about a divorce just for the benefit of having every other weekend to yourself (I can see the custody battle: You take ‘em. No, YOU take ‘em. No, they like YOU better. But you are their mother. Talk about an ugly custody fight!).
• No one is allowed to come to your house without at least 20 minutes notice, but you’d prefer a 1-week notice period. And even then they aren’t allowed to look in any closets or under any beds. And they can never ever open the laundry room door!
• The exercise equipment you invested in makes for a GREAT place to hang clothes. You use the treadmill for stuff-to-go-to-the-dry-cleaners and you use the stationary bike for stuff-to-hang-up-in-the-closet-someday.

The good news is that we do, eventually, come out of survivor mode. We get to sleep in. We get to make wonderful meals that take hours to prepare. We are able to get dressed with clothing from hangers in closets rather than living out of a laundry basket. We might have date nights again and perhaps even weekend getaways. We will have clean houses and we will exercise regularly and we will relax on the weekends.

Until that day, I will continue to survive as best I can. I will write my mental grocery list while having sex with my husband. I will consider an afternoon of swimming as a swell substitute for baths for my children. I will drop to my knees and thank whatever god or goddess is out there for giving us cable TV with 27 channels dedicated to children’s programming. And I will capture, in words and pictures, the sheer, unbridled wonderment of these precious years because lord knows I won’t be able to remember it all later.

When it gets particularly stressful, though, I do try to get them all to vote me off the island. I think a mud hut on an isolated mountaintop sounds heavenly. I think if I yell loud enough, if I cry hard enough, if I recede into my little mommy shell, maybe they’ll vote me off. Fortunately, my clan will have none of it – they seem resigned to being stuck with me.

What can I say? The tribe has spoken.