Motherhood Sucks

I have written extensively about Women and particularly Motherhood and the larger Mommy Blogger Scene that has risen like a flood and a tide that has become a cottage industry of its own. We have reformed Mothers, converted Mothers, Christian Mothers, Aged Mothers, Royal or “former” Royal Mothers, Hot Mothers, Grandmothers, Lesbian or once straight Mothers, and all of them versed well in what defines being a Working Mother. That is a redundancy in and of itself as all Mothers are. We revere the concept of Motherhood yet not all of us should be nor want to be. Ah yes that is the question.

And while every day when you are a Mother is Mother’s day there are many many Women who have elected to not be Mothers. We are obsessed with Mothers and we are sure that again in our faux Meritocracy that it is some type of intrinsic failure to be a mother. We have Women who go to great lengths to be Mothers and hire women when all else fails to be one for them. We are sure any Woman wants to be a Mother and if not why not? I got 99 reasons and do you really care or is this again somehow about you? I feel that is our society now, it is always about me, no you, no I mean I. As My Mother used to say, “What are you an Eye Specialist?” I’ll let that sink in.

I realized the other day why I am shitty at interpersonal relationships. I don’t care. I used to try and it was over the top, as I thought if I tried real hard to care I would. It doesn’t work that way. Not a day goes by thanking myself that I did not have a child. I do believe we see all relationships as a type of a Mirror and I have used that euphemism repeatedly when it comes to Children. They see themselves as a reflection of the Adult holding it. And that is a bag of mixed nuts right there. And we do that with our Adult ones trying to find a reasonable compliment to our own view of self. As mine changes frequently anyone in a partnership with me would have to be a shape shifter. I loathe the expression finding a Partner just like Mom or Dad, YIKES, paternal incest how charming. And with that I duplicated my Parents marriage to a perfect imitation where we were literally in a Marriage of one. I liked it, he did not. And with that I moved on and out and about and he is in what I believe his 15th year of Marriage with someone who I assume gets him in ways I had no interest. No regrets what.so.ever. I learned something, got something from it and with that I am happy to be alone. I would enjoy genuine friendship/companionship but I do not miss day to day routines and I especially do not miss Sex. I can handle that one on my own.

People do confuse Intimacy with Sexuality and I realize that again I liked them in their own lanes and now perhaps at this age it seems to make sense more and with that I tried to hard to co-join them like bad Siamese Twins. (I believe that term is of course outdated and will the language Police give me the new and approved one) It takes a lot to realize that the difference between the two and I often think that is why when Women have children all of that unconditional love, the endless obsession and desire about what that is is now directed to the child. And that in turn is as equally smothering, damaging and destructive, it just takes longer to see the results. Much is often made of those Couples that have distinct relationships outside of Parenthood and those are thought of as Outliers who are selfish, weird or eccentric. And there are many Women wish they had not; The irony that the most famous Authors of Children’s books hated or did not have kids. The Cat is not in that hat. This is what we do as adults, make adults ones and leave the child behind.

The word CHOICE is being heavily bandied about of late as it is regards to decisions that surround Pregnancy. The move to make any type of option outside of carrying a Child to term is being now decided by the States, the same States that think Drag Shows and Drag Queen Reading Hour is a some type a recruitment mission or a pedophile on patrol. They are sure that Trans Men and Women are a threat to Bathroom freedoms and sporting shenanigans. I recall the scandal of the Women of the East German Swim Team. “Gosh Grunhilda can really do the backstroke, check out those shoulders!” I still will go to my own death bed believing it is about fucking and dicks. I can see a (fill in the blank word) Man standing at the Urinal and the guy next to whips out a foot long or he sees the feet in the closed stall facing forward. And the other is that the hot chick next to him is in fact a Trans Woman with still a Penis. Fucking or Pissing are two essential dominant factors in men’s thought process and then sports. See that is the Trans obsession.

Women I assume have less interest in where that dick is. We get bored of sex early on. How many Dick pics can you see where you think, “Haven’t I seen this in a Museum and wasn’t it better?” And when you love sex as I once did, it takes one too many dicks after a time where you think “God please let’s end this now as I got shit to do.” It will be a cold day in hell when I shove a dick down my throat ever again. That gag reflex is restored thankfully.

So when not planning the career life that will be crashed by Men in some way shape or another; That the Aging Parent that you now have to care for like a child will occur or that at some point you will be required to drop one from your Uterus or hire someone else to do it for you in both cases. I do wonder is that due to biological problems? And in turn that may be a sign that you should not breed or for some other reason that has little to do with fertility that demands you become a Parent. And then it begins.

When I read this essay from the Sister of Frank Bruni, the former NY Times columnist, I thought it was actually true. Children are not your clones and with that it explains again much of the Mommy Industry. When you can’t have a career you pimp your children. It is like Mama June only not making your kid a stripper.

Success for my children meant finding their own paths, not retracing mine

By Adelle Kirk

Every year, without fail, about 20 of my best female friends from college and I reunite for a long weekend. It’s not always easy to pull off; we’re career women, wives, mothers, busily “having it all,” which means having almost no free time. But we relish traveling back across the decades together. We reminisce about the nights spent dancing to Liquid Pleasure, our favorite 1980s band. We laugh about the sleepless fog we lived through our senior spring as we tried to finish the thesis papers required to graduate.

Then, inevitably, the talk turns from our antics back in the day to our kids today. To the trials they put us through or the challenges of parenting that no one saw coming. Some of our kids have real limitations. Others are quietly defiant. Still others are outright rebellious. But a single common thread runs through our observations and complaints about them: Why can’t they be more like we were?

We’re no doubt seeing our pasts through rose-colored glasses when we ask that. We’re also measuring our kids with the yardsticks of the academic accolades that we accrued, the elite university where we got our cherished diplomas, the big jobs we snagged, the fairy-tale parents we expected to be. We want exactly — and I mean exactly — the same for them.

But is that concerned parenting or simple vanity? Are we trying to encourage and shape authentic individuals or create clones of ourselves?

The positive spin is that the path we’re best equipped to help them navigate is the one we took, so we’re simply giving them the surest set of directions we can. There’s truth in that and in our desires, heartfelt and understandable, to make certain that they and we continue to have the same bearings, enjoy the same interests, speak the same language. It’s a way of holding them close as long as possible. It’s a recipe for lifelong friendship.

Now that they are young adults, I look back at my two children’s youths, and I see, over and over, me frantically trying to determine who they’d be rather than letting them discover who they really were. I’d been on my high school swimming and basketball teams, so my son needed sports of his own, and I forced him to play football and lacrosse, though what he loved was watching, not participating in, both. As soon as I got an inkling that he was better with numbers than with words, I bought verbal SAT books for him every summer and spent endless hours playing editor on his high school papers. He had to find a route to well-rounded academic excellence.

With my daughter, it was much the same. I rotated her through one sport after another, intent that she also follow in my footsteps. Alas, she was more an artist than an athlete — but that was OK! I loved theater in high school and performed in countless plays throughout college. So I pushed and pushed in that direction, a backstage tiger mother with a mighty roar.

I now realize that I wasn’t simply and benignly motivating my children. I was probably giving them the constant feeling that they were disappointing me, that their natural interests, talents and drive were never enough. That’s by far my biggest regret as a parent — not that neither of them has my alma mater, not that neither of them was all-American in lacrosse, not that neither of them had a precocious turn on a Broadway stage. I worry that neither of them understood how little I really cared about that. And that’s because I didn’t understand it myself.

Somehow, they survived. The credit goes entirely to them. My son prospers at a top-notch public university, where his major and his side interests bear absolutely no relation to mine at his age. He’s happy. My daughter decided that college wasn’t for her — at least not now — and took a job in the restaurant industry in a city halfway across the country from our New Jersey home. I visited her there recently. I ate where she works and watched her in action. She moved with a confidence that wasn’t always there before. She moved with joy.

So what was the tug of war that I went through with them — and that so many of my friends go through with their children — all about? What was the point? The gift our children give us is their individuality, and they develop strength of character not by emulating or outdoing us but by finding their own ways once we finally let them. That destination may not be one we ever imagined. But in being a surprise, it can be a special delight.

I try to embrace different yardsticks for my children now: their contentment, their fulfillment. And I genuinely admire their decisions and their determination to live their lives on their own terms. Maybe I’m just mellowing in my advancing age, or maybe they’ve taught me something crucial about the tyranny of precise expectations and the liberty of sloughing those off. When I swap parenting stories with my college classmates during our next weekend together, I won’t lament what my children haven’t done or may never do or the degree to which they aren’t replicas of me. I’ll celebrate their originality. Or — imagine this — I won’t hold them up for inspection at all.

On a Personal Note

Over the years, Frank has used his newsletters and columns to write at length about our family, including his relationships with our two brothers — Mark and Harry — and me. So I thought I’d seize this opportunity to give you my perspective on his. It’s not so much a correction of the record as a refinement and an elaboration.

He says that we’re big eaters and loud talkers. True. I mean, we’re (half) Italian. It’s in the genes.

He says that we take pains to carve out time for trips together. Also true.

But I’m not sure he gives you a full and accurate sense of how he fits into the group. As the second-born boy, he wasn’t the natural leader of our pack; that role fell to Mark, the firstborn, who cast a long shadow for Frank to grow up in. Frank also didn’t fly somewhat under our parents’ radar, the way Harry, the youngest of my three older brothers, did. And he wasn’t the pampered baby of the family, a long-awaited daughter. I drew that lucky card.

So Frank became, well, the family’s narrator. Its chronicler. We often turned to him to describe what we were going through, to put it into words (and this was before he went ahead and did that for a living). I can still remember the puzzled expressions on Mark’s and Harry’s faces when Frank sometimes came out with a verb or an adjective they’d never heard of. He was sort of like an SAT prep guide on legs. And if I’m being honest, he could be a little lordly — that’s a Frank kind of word — about it.

While we’re on the subject of his foibles, I should give you my view of his caretaking of Regan, given how frequently he regales you with tales about her. It’s … obsessive. He agonizes if he has walked her less than five miles on a given day; he’s stupidly happy if he has gone over eight. My dogs always gyrate with excitement when Frank and Regan drop by, because he’ll take them along for one of these marathons or force me to bring them along.

Oh, and on those family trips? No one else suggests that cocktail hour begin quite as early in the afternoon as Frank does.

He’s the only sibling each of us calls regularly. I’m not sure why, but it works out that way. He and I talk almost daily, often at some early morning hour when the ring of my phone beats my alarm because Frank is already up and (you guessed it) out walking Regan.

He’s generous — to me, to my children, to his other nieces and nephews. He’s generous with his time, with his confidences, with his advice (which is pretty good), with his gossip (which is even better). Heck, he’s even generous with his newsletter space, giving it to me this week. I’m grateful. And I thank you, too, for indulging me.

The Reservoir

I have been of late trying to figure out coping strategies for the final six months in Nashville.  My tentative date of departure is October 15 at the latest.  It all hinges on how quickly we can finish the last part of my dental work and in turn how well I can pack and go.  My plan is to start now and I have no problem myself doing the heavy lifting but it is when I have to rely or depend upon others that my resolve falls away.

I am not sure if my depression is just the frustration over the teeth. It is difficult to function and to feel comfortable, I cannot eat what I want and I feel exhausted just dealing with all the issues that surround the care and maintenance of the tissues and the denture as I wait for the next phase to begin. That is when the implants are uncovered, capped and the impressions made to begin for the final teeth to be crafted and in turn installed.   At times it sounds like a car being prepped for repair!

Then there is the frustration this process has alighted, the issues of my temper and my snark to lead me to say things that I should have not, suggesting that a gun to my head would expedite the process and perhaps at least allow for better communication.  Again I tried to manipulate the situation playing victim in a place that lives for victimhood so it led to the Cops coming to my door at 7 am to do a “wellness check.” That threw back most of this a couple of months for me to calm down and try again to find some level of communication that would work.  And that actually never happened as once again I was hauled into a room and asked why I was always alone at my appointments and how did I get there?  Seriously is this for real?  Do I appear incompetent? Apparently.

The struggles began early when I went to the schools, I have written extensively about how horrific those are but I realized that is where much of my energy and passion comes from, children.  To have that one source of energy that filled my reservoir taken has left me depleted in ways even I did not realize.  The trauma, the poverty, the long standing legacy of racism and generational ignorance has affected the culture here like a cancer that cannot be treated let alone cured.

I tried volunteering and found the same smug territorial-ism that I encountered in the community, the eye rolling, the ignoring and the lecturing about how something was done wrong and rarely a kind word or genuine attempt at bonding.  Offers to go for coffee were met with the passive acceptance but later excused as unavailable.  It became a constant push pull to try to meet people and when any offers were made it was to attend their Church, a house I had no interest in visiting.   But I did go and no offers were made to come to lunch, brunch or again but prayers were proffered and I accepted them with the intent they were given, with grace.  But once over I was alone again.

My days were spent futilely and desperately between Yoga classes, long walks, online shopping, book reading, and sitting at varying coffee shops reading the New York Times and harassing the staff for laughs.  When bored I would go through my endless stash of no longer fitting clothes, things I did not want nor need and pass them off, not to buy friendship but to stave off guilt for my sitting there for hours having nowhere to go and no one to go home to.   I would have gotten a pet but when I knew I was here for the short time there was no way I would make that kind of commitment and I watched how people here seemed to connect and relate to their pets – they had them and they walked them, rarely cleaned up after them, the dogs and even cats seemed desperate for attention and they too glommed onto each passer by as a potential friend.   I saw myself in those animals and felt what they felt.

I have tried drinking too much, crying not enough and mediation to stave off the anger, the rage, the sadness and the like and it never did more than make me feel worse.  As I watch my reservoir deplete I worried that it would one day take a torrential down pour to refill it and then it would overflow and burst as a result changing the landscape forever.  My greatest fear seemed to get closer with every day that passes and as we have come to learn with global warming it can snow in May so I am on full Weather Alert between now and my time to depart but every day seems to bring more rage and anger.

I worry that my personal reservoir can never be full enough to be sustainable and as a result I am permanently damaged in a way that further closes me off.     Every effort to try to build a friendship or some type of healthy relationship has led me to hit the proverbial wall.  One can only hit a wall so much before the cracks lead to total collapse.

Withdrawal and retreat is a tactic of war and of sports only the idea is to rethink one’s strategy and find the opponents weak spot in which to wring out defeat.  You wring out dish clothes and rags and I am one rag of a towel.

A loner by nature is not of nature as we all have to eventually find a tribe, a pack, a school, a colony, a swarm, a collective in which to belong and to feel a part of a whole.  I cannot even find a half anymore.  I laughed when I saw the #SexStrike. Really? Can you strike from a job that you do not do anymore?  And was it a job?  At times it felt that way and the times it did not I could walk away I would cross that picket line.  I miss sex but its men I don’t miss or maybe its just the men I used to know. 

I used to say it is not the size that matters (take that however you want) but it is the quality of that which you take or is given to savor and take pleasure from.  Well I know at age 60 there is no one who wants even a taste.  The water has sat to long in this reservoir to be of use, it is stagnant.  Funny water is deep as am I.