On Being a Mom (Some Day)

I think about childbirth, motherhood, and parenting a lot. I read about them a lot. I daydream about them a lot. I talk about them a lot. I worry about them a lot.

No, I have no children of my own. But I was one. And being a kid, an exceptionally sensitive, perceptive, intuitive serial foster kid who was subjected to about 20 different sets of parenting strategies and values (one set of parents saying "Do this thing! It's great!" and the next set of parents saying "Why the heck are you doing that thing? It's dumb!"), I think, gives me enough perspective to say something on the matter. I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done not so well.

For the past six years, I've taken part in raising the three sons of a single mom who lives in my town. When I met them, her marriage was newly separated and the family had, two weeks previously, moved several states to the north of Daddy. They were 5, 3, and 10 months old, and they needed a nanny, and I needed money. Over these six years, I've dressed hundreds of owies and broken up dozens of brother fights. I've done 3-am 104-degree fevers, a monsters-under-my-bed all-night whine-a-thon (that lasted 4 months), mysterious rashes, three-brother, germ-sharing pukefests, evenings of soccer-basketball-swimming-choir-practice hell, and the three-year-old-with-a-crushed-skull-Medivaced-to-children's-hospital birthday-party nightmare. (Not one of mine, and the kid is fine today. Incidentally, never, ever rent a moon bounce. Ever.) I know how to oversee tooth brushing, vegetable eating, medicine taking, piano practicing, reading, napping, and bubble bathing. I've been pooped on, peed on, snotted on, bled on, barfed on, coughed on, sneezed on, splashed on, spilled on, and drawn on (and most of these on the way out the door in the morning). I've had moments of extraordinary grace and patience, and I've lost it and had to apologize. I love them all. They're incredible kids. Yes, I know that being a nanny is not the same as being a mom. But it's kind of like being an aunt. So bring it on, parenthood.

I hate when I comment on my experience with kids and all the moms and grandmas in the room exchange knowing, patronizing looks and roll their eyes. I may be young and I may be childless, but I am anything but green. The people who raised me have taught me very well what not to do. Here are a few of the many good things that my surrogate kids have taught me.

Early bedtime is totally, totally doable. And worth the struggle. Well-rested children are pleasant, happy children. There is no reason for a 6-year-old to be awake at 10 pm.

Kids do not need sugar or fast food. Furthermore, parents are not bound by any law of physics, biology, or society to buy cookies or happy meals. During the period of a child's life when eating habits are formed, a parent has complete control over what that child eats. No, once in a while will not kill a child. But "once in a while" means every few months, not every Wednesday and Saturday. There is no reason for a 6-year-old to be obese.

There is a huge, major, massive difference between discipline and punishment. All children need discipline, and if you do it well, they will respect and love you. No child needs to be punished, and punishment will make a child lose respect for you and herself.

There is no such thing as a bad child. There is no reason to cut a child down or dominate him. Tell a child he is bad, and he will take you up on it. Tell a child she is good, and she will prove it. Let me say it again, because this is really important: there is no such thing as a bad child.

We should be honest with kids. We shouldn't try to shelter them from what goes on in the world. There is bad stuff out there. Shouldn't kids learn about it right away, while adults are still around the help them process it? I read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl for the first time when I was 8. And it did me a world of good to learn early about evil. If we aren't open about the bad, scary, painful stuff, what comfort is it to a child when we say "Don't worry, it'll be okay"?

A lot of adults lie to kids in order to manipulate and control them. This is never okay. Kids know when we're lying, and it really hurts them. When I learned that Santa Claus wasn't real, I decided that God must not be real either. After all, they're both men you can't see who give you stuff. Makes perfect sense, right? Lying to kids makes them lose faith.

We aren't perfect, and kids really get that. They can and will forgive us. We should be authentic with children, all the time.

***

I can't wait to give birth. Yeah, you heard me. No, it is not just because I've never done it. Yes, I know it hurts. But I won't be doing it on my back, strapped to a fetal monitor in a cold, brightly lit room with people barking orders at me and strangers touching intimate parts of my body. And I know that will make it better. I want to know what it feels like for a human being to grow inside and then emerge from my body, swollen ankles and all. I want to know what it is to share so intense and elemental an experience with my female community. I actually want to feel the sort of agony that sires the ecstasy of clasping my new child to my breasts.

One of my favorite literary genres is the birth story. I love the stories of normal, natural births, when women trust their bodies to do what they are designed to do, shunning the interference of modern health "care" and allowing their astonishing, vigorous, radiant bodies to guide their babies into the world with peace, dignity, primordial strength, and ethereal wisdom. I love to hear of women who give birth with the people who love them at their sides in the intimacy and warmth of their homes.

I know this may sound quixotic and radical. I also know that the modern definition of "normal" birth as told by men and the media, as an emergency, an inconvenience, an accident waiting to happen, a crisis, an illness, disgusting, frightening, dangerous, is purely and simply wrong. Women are disempowered, abused, lied to, and violated if they attempt to take control of their bodies and birth experiences. (I know many women who say they've had wonderful experiences giving birth in conventional medical circumstances. I wonder if any of those women went into the hospitals empowered, telling the doctors and nurses how the birth would be handled, and then didn't back down. Because empowered women are often mocked, punished, threatened, and ignored by hospital staff who think they know what birth should be and don't want to be told otherwise. This is one of my favorite blogs. Read this post and the following five if you need some convincing.) How disappointing and wrong it is that, as advanced as we supposedly are, low-risk women are statistically safer giving birth in their living rooms than in a hospital.

Why is it this way? Well, I guess I know why it's this way. This is still a men's world. Men still run the show, and the women in the club are there on men's terms. But birth can't be more external to the realm of men, and rather than trusting us and listening to us as we scream and cry and rage to bring forth life, the medical community has attempted to fix us, quiet us down, control us. We may have come a long way, baby, but the way is longer still.

Can you tell that I am very passionate about the treatment of pregnant women by the medical community?

***

I read an article in the most recent Christianity Today yesterday about how Christian parents place way too much stock in their role in their children's lives. The article explained that children are autonomous human beings and cannot be programmed by the even-handed application of the "perfect" child-rearing techniques to be precisely what their parents want them to be. Children grow up to be healthy, functional, faithful adults apart from parental influence, and they grow up to be messy, struggling, fearful adults apart from parental influence. And all the time, I was thinking People need to be told this?

But they do. I know this is easy for me to say because I'm not a mom, but maybe that's exactly why I should say it: Moms, your kids will survive you and will love you despite (and even because of) your lack of perfection. Their maker looks after them, and they will be who they will be, and your mistakes will not debilitate them. Your victories will not ensure their victories. I don't know how many moms I know whose primary emotions with regard to their children are guilt and shame. This shouldn't be. They experience so much anxiety because their children's lives are not flawless and peachy, and it breaks my heart. These are amazing moms, kind moms, moms who love their kids so much, who give so much, whose arms and hearts are open, who live each day in the desert so that their kids can swim in the deep. Moms who don't know how far their love goes and so seem to think it doesn't go very far. (Please, please believe me, it goes a long, long way.) Moms whose kids seem to hate them and so think they've done something to deserve that contempt. Human moms who are exhausted and need space and so feel inadequate. But good moms all. I wish I could offer encouragement to the moms in my life. I wouldn't mind having any one of you as my mom! I know what truly bad parenting looks like. Even as flawed as my own mother is, she loves me and did her best, and I know that and understand and love her too, and I am a functional adult despite her mistakes. I hope I can remember to give myself some grace when I'm a mom, to let my children go and be who they are, not to blame myself for their struggles or credit myself with their triumphs. To remember that we're all human beings, sisters, brothers, and we survive because of and despite each other. I don't know how hard that is yet.

***

Here are the lyrics of a song that John Lennon wrote in honor of his mother. She abandoned him to the care of his aunt Mimi, who raised him, and then reentered his life when he was a teenager. She was killed by a drunk driver when John was 18. John's practice of transcendental meditation brought him into touch with his feelings about his mother, and "Julia" is an intimate tribute to those revelations.

Half of what I say is meaningless

But I say it just to reach you,

Julia

Julia, Julia, ocean child, calls me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

Julia, seashell eyes, windy smile, calls me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

Her hair of floating sky is shimmering, glimmering,

In the sun

Julia, Julia, morning moon, touch me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

When I cannot sing my heart

I can only speak my mind, Julia

Julia, sleeping sand, silent cloud, touch me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

Calls me

So I sing a song of love for Julia, Julia, Julia