Sprint mothering

My Beloved Back-to-School Daughters,

Let it go down in history here, and not just in the Wal-Mart parking lot, that I love you more than my life.

In the parking lot of Wal-Mart, as we exited the car (the one you call Ghostie), I told you both that I would never get over losing either of you if something terrible should ever happen. This was a continuation of Mommy’s Annual Back-to-School Safety and Courage and Being a Good Citizen Speech and Quiz that you’d been forced to listen to in the car as we ran errands today.

“Would you kill yourself?” you asked, Sophie. “If somebody bad kidnapped us or killed us or something?”

I had to think hard on that one, measure my words more carefully than usual.

“I would think about it,” I said. You both looked up at me, keenly interested in what would come next. “But I don’t think I would. I would try to do something good with my life. But my heart would be permanently broken.”

“Would you cry ALL THE TIME?” is what you asked then, Hattie.

“Yes,” I said.

Hattie, you looked impressed.

Sophie, you? Not so much. I get it.

“Okay, can we stop talking about this now?” you said, Sophie, as we entered Wal-Mart. We went there to buy you and your sister new underpants and new socks for the school year.

At 7, Sophie, your mother has become more mortifying to you than watching the checkout lady scan your sister’s new Dora the Explorer underpants. (You chose a far more tasteful collection for yourself.) You are now completely aware of just how embarrassing and hopeless your mother truly is, and you attempt to head me off at Embarrassment Pass whenever possible.

I understand this. I really do. I am embarrassing. Sometimes to you; sometimes just to myself.

By now, my daughters, both of you have figured out on some level what I myself am just beginning to articulate:

When it comes to being your mother, I am a far finer sprinter than I am an endurance mother.

I mother you in starting-gun pops and nail-biter photo finishes. Slow and steady is not how I will win this race, if I win it at all.

My sprint mothering can be hard on all of us, especially with the divorce. When you are with me, you are really with me. Every other week, you are with me for seven days’ straight, us three girls. You leave me breathless and shaking—sometimes wonderfully so, sometimes in the worst way.

As much as I wish I were, I am not Caroline Ingalls, endurance mama of all time.

You know she’s my hero. You catch me mumbling about Caroline Ingalls all the time, and how Caroline Ingalls wouldn’t have put up with that kind of backtalk, and how Caroline Ingalls would definitely have made Laura and Mary clean up their corner of the cabin, and limit them to one rag doll each, and maybe only give them one piece of hoarhound candy every three weeks. Rationing was important to Caroline Ingalls, the rationing of time and resources, just as it is to me.

Sophie, you are old enough to find this Caroline Ingalls obsession of mine hilarious. “CAROLINE INGALLS HIT A BEAR ON THE NOSE TO SAVE HER GIRLS. Could you do that?”

“Yes,” I told you, though I could see you did not believe it for a second. “I could totally smack a bear to save you. But maybe I would be QUICKER ABOUT SAVING YOU if you were less mouthy and cleaned your room more often.”

You flounced away rolling your eyes, traipsing off in your own floppy rag-doll style, leaving behind an absentminded mess in your wake, as you always do. I am part of your absentminded mess, of course. I am your mother. We mothers are all just part of the mess.

The funny thing is—and this will be interesting to discuss when you become adults, and decide whether or not to have families of your own—I really thought I’d be a steadier mother to you. My mom, your Babci, was a serene, laid-back mom. Her mother, my Nanny, was (if you can imagine it) even more calm than Babci. They were endurance mothers who knew how to go the distance.

I figured it was a gene, just like the genes that gave me their Polish shepherdess curves, and my Nanny’s laugh, when I really get going. I figured I would take after them.

Not so. I lack the grace. I lack the stamina. I lack the serenity, the even keel.

And I yell. Lord knows and you know, I yell. Heady as she goes. Never steady.

I sense that my father’s mother, my Mimi, had a rougher time as a mother. It’s hard to say what was due to difficult circumstances, and what was due to a mercurial temperament eclipsed by dark for the last half of her life. Her sadness often got the best of her, as it does me. Our brand of melancholy, well, it’s a tough thing to explain. It’s tough to tell someone just how dark this dark can be.

My Mimi did the best she could for my dad and his brother and sister, but I sense she was a sprint mother as well. That she had to be. One doesn’t choose to be a sprint mother, that much I believe.

I imagine her struggling then as I do now. Offering what she could in bursts when the joy and wisdom were hers for the taking. Withdrawing from her brood when it was not. Desperately praying for the patience she might have thought she saw in other mothers, and rarely in herself.

Yes.

You got a sprinter. For better or for worse. Probably a 50-50 blend. More caffeinated than not.

I am brilliant in spurts. You haven’t seen enough of the world and the parents in it to know yet, but I’ll tell you now: I am the mother equivalent of the 100-meter dash gold medalist. When I can snare the energy, really dig my fingernails into it, I can make you laugh (and make your friends laugh) better than any other mama. I can explain the hard stuff, clearly. When I am in my mama zone, I can lead you to just what you need swiftly and soundly. And nearly always, weirdly.

“You’re a weird mommy,” you told me, Hattie Belle, “in the GOOD way.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, Sophie. “DEFINITELY the weirdest.”

We talk about weird a lot. This is something I can give you. This is something I understand. We all have a freak flag, and I have learned to wave mine boldly. It’s a white flag—there’s surrender in whipping out the freak flag. Beautiful surrender, and the chance to find out who loves you for the truth of you.

I wish I had learned that earlier in my life. I am still learning. But now I try to teach you, at the same time I’m teaching myself. No small feat.

I try to give you as much as I can, when I can. I don’t know if the effort shows. I wish to the point of agony that I were more consistent with you, more placid. My energy waxes and wanes painfully. My guts churn as I stare into the pantry, wondering what the hell to feed you, knowing you will reject most of what I put on your plate. My heart lurches, constantly, looking for a home for me, wanting to make a home for you. For all of us. A new kind of home.

Just like you, I want to feel safe. I want to feel like I am doing right by you, and by me.

But I am flash paper: bright sparks, suddenly gone. Light, then dark, then light again, but when? I imagine this is not so easy for you. I am sorry.

When you fight with each other, I want to run far, far away (I would get 100 meters away, then collapse, no doubt). When you argue with me over the simplest of things, I want to bolt. When I can’t, I yell. My anger strikes like the lightning you both hate to see in the sky. I wish it were easier for us all, now and always. I leak mistakes. I run headfirst into metaphorical walls. I run out of steam by Day Four of our weeks together.

I worry about you both. I worry when you yell as I do, when your answers with each other are as curt as mine. Would you have been better off with Caroline Ingalls, chores all week, and church and starched petticoats on Sunday? Bear or no bear, yes, I think you might have been.

But Laura and Mary and Carrie took all three open positions. So I am yours, as long as I live, and then some.

It does not work the other way. It shouldn’t. You are mine, but you are not mine to keep.

I know my job description cold. My job is to use the “my” pronoun gently. “My” daughters. “My” girls. I use “my” for the sake of convenience, and as a reflection of my stunned pride that such beautiful bright creatures passed through me on the way to this lifetime. But you belong to you, in the end. And I want to teach you to belong to you.

So I try to make my great mother-sprints count. When I talk to you, I talk to you strong and bold and hard and real. I talk to you about Death and Religion and Puberty and Bullies and Vaginas and Childbirth and Periods and Kidnappers and Murder and Friendship and Divorce and Anger and Joy and Vocation.

But I also believe in a good helping of benign neglect, for my present sanity, and for your future sanity.

I do not dote on you. I am not, have never been, a doting mom. I think right now you would like it very much—no, I KNOW you would like this very much—if I doted on you, if I constructed a life that revolved around you, a whirling carousel of mirrors and endless brass rings for you to grab and carelessly discard.

I refuse. I love you, and this is why I refuse you so much of what you think you must have.

I want you to grow up central only to yourself. I want you to find your center, to be your own pivot, your own point of balance, your own anchor. I don’t ever want you thinking you are the center of the universe, and be shocked to find that it is not at your beck and call. You are each completely unique, but you are no more special than any other person walking this planet. That’s not tough love. That’s love that will serve you well and teach you to keep your eyes open to the uniqueness and beauty in others.

Yes. Keep those bright eyes open.

You don’t belong to me, Lovely Ones. You belong to yourselves, but you belong to the world too. And the world needs you, Daughters. It will not dote on you, ever. But it, and the sad souls living in it, could use your service, your compassion. Starting now. Yes, now.

Tomorrow you go back to school. Hattie Belle, you will be in Pre-K. Sophie Bean, you will be a second-grader. In the car, I quizzed you. “What do you do if you see a new girl looking sad and lost?” “What do you do if you see someone being bullied?” “What do you do if everyone starts picking on somebody else and they want you to do it too?”

You were unfailing with your answers. Some of it is rote, some of it is telling me what I want to hear, but some of it is you. Already.

“I SAY ‘HI I’M HANNAH! YOU’RE NEW! DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME!’”

“I would say, ‘Stop doing that!’ and then I would help the person they were hurting.”

As kids, you’re natural sprinters. You’ll get steadier as you get older. But for now, if you’re going to sprint, I want to steer you sprinting in the right direction. Toward compassion. Toward sharing. Toward always helping, rather than harming.

I sprint, I stumble. I say too much, too loud, too fast to you. You sprint, you stumble. You pinch each other, slam doors in each other’s faces, spout sisterly meanness like vicious little geysers.

I yell. You yell. We all yell. We are absurdly loud, at times. Even the dogs flinch and stare.

I hope you will be all right, now and forever. Your hearing, and your hearts.

I love your hearts very much. I yell because I love you. I really do. That can be true, it turns out.

I yell because I know you can do better.

I yell because I know I should do better, be better to you, but I don’t always know how. And I hate that. More than I can say.

I am sorry for the times I go too fast, the times I leave you behind. I am sorry for the times when you need me to go the distance, and I can’t find the resources to reassure you that I will.

Maybe someday you will find you are natural sprinters too, or maybe you will turn out to be Steady Freddies with your own broods. If you are sprint mothers, I will know what to say. I will hug you when you fall down, and I will let you know all that you are doing right. If you are Steady Freddies, I will marvel, and hug you when you fall down too, and I will let you know all that you are doing right.

I think I have a fighting chance of being a Steady Freddie Grandma. I look forward to that.

I love you. Make yourselves proud. I know you can. In the meantime, I will try to make myself proud.

Happy Back-to-School, and Back-to-Learning-About-Life.

xoxoxo
Your 100-Meter Mama