There was something I needed to hear. I didn’t realize it
until an average weekday afternoon, when I heard it and my eyes surprised me by
getting wet. Like unbeknownst to me the tears had been gathering behind them
for a few strong weeks but those words put a big crack in the dam.
“You’re doing a good job.”
When is the last time you heard it? That you are doing a
good job as a mother?
For me, it came not as an obligatory Mother’s Day golf
clap, but on a random Friday afternoon in the midst of specialist appointments
for both boys. The school principal and I had A Conversation. And it was mostly
about how I have no more capacity for negative. Even if you never told me one
time how difficult my child is, I would still know. I know my child. I know he
bounces off the walls and marches to his own drummer and gets stuck on things
inside his mind that other kids would never even notice. I know his energy can
zap that of adults around him. Tell me something you like about him.
Since I was pregnant with my first hawklet, the
downright-scary-at-times labels have come: “Spina bifida.” “Non-stress tests.”
“Speech delay.” “Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” “Perfectionist.” “ADHD.” And
with the other one: “MRI.” “Albinism.” “Nystagmus.” “Esotropia.” “IEP.” Welcome to parenthood.
The negative is not exclusive to labels and to Different. The negative is all over the
news. The Mommy Wars have perpetuated competition and finger pointing and judgment
for decades. If you work, you must not love your kids as much as I do. If you
don’t work, you must be over-involved in the PTA with an inability to
understand guilt and trade-offs.
The self-doubt.
The wondering if what I’m doing (or not doing) today is
going to drive him to drug addiction later.
The anger that the time I have to put into this takes
away from that, and vice versa. Falling short. Chronically late.
Those are all scary labels, too.
A lot of what we have to do every day just to get through
the motions is So. Exhausting. Sometimes I can’t help but be mad at my own
child for making everything harder than it has to be. This is a huge admission,
one that I am not proud of, but I’m putting it into words here because in spite
of this, in spite of everything related to this, I am still doing a good job.
And one reason I know that is because I can still step outside of this and
remember that it is not his fault. Sometimes, stepping outside of the moment in
motherhood is a herculean feat.
And I also know this is true because someone else said it.
Maybe it was the fatigue that Friday afternoon. But when
this person on the periphery looked me in the eyes and told me she’d noticed
that we’ve been dealt a lot with both kids that most families don’t
have/know/understand and that she sees that we’re on it, that we make it a
priority to keep on top of what our kids need and look for the tools available
to figure it out… I exhaled. I hadn’t noticed that I had been holding my
breath. I think I’ve been holding my breath for six years.
“Thank you,” I responded. I meant it. I needed to hear
that. I needed to exhale.
What I want you to know is that you, too, are doing a
good job. We are all given a hand of cards that doesn’t match each other’s. We
only show each other the backs. All the backs match. But that only makes us
eyeball each other to attempt to figure out what we’re hiding on the other
side. I don’t know your cards. But I don’t have to to know that you are
managing your own dealt hand in your own way with its own unique intricacies I
can’t understand. You are doing a good job.
And so am I.
