Oh poop!

Now that Clayton's out of diapers, he's a little more reluctant to move his bowels. (So far he’s had better luck in the driveway, in the back yard, and on the back steps than in the potty.)  Last week two days went by without a poop. On the third day he complained, "My stomach hurts, Mama." By evening, it was clear the time had come, but by then things were pretty well impacted. His face contorted as he strained. "Mama, it hurts my nose," he told me from where he sat on his potty in the living room.  "It hurts my mouth!"

                His little face was so worried and his calls for "Mama!" so pitiful, I quickly abandoned the dishes and went to sit and read with him. "You've got to let it out," I told him. "Just squeeze my hand when it hurts."  We read Harry and the Terrible Whatzit together, and when the urge to push came upon him he would grab my hand and squeeze while I praised and encouraged him.  (“Remember to breathe,” I wanted to tell him. “Imagine the baby.” )

During one particularly violent episode, Clayton vomited a little onto the floor in front of him. “What was that?” he said with true surprise. (The first time one vomits with full consciousness it must be pretty weird.) I tried my best to explain. “You know how sometimes Dee Dee spits up a little? It’s kind of like that.”

“Mama wipe it up?” Clayton does not like messes.

I set a bowl between his knees to catch any more “spit-ups” and resumed my position beside him. The stench was horrendous. The open floor plan  of our house ensured that the whole living area—kitchen, dining room, living room-- now stunk like a ripe latrine.  Don had taken over the dishes and was trying not to gag. “It smells like a possum exploded in here,” he said.

Meanwhile Clayton continued to strain, but now when the movements came upon him he leaned over the bowl while clutching at my hand and whispering, “Mama!” In terms of pure grossness, few experiences in my life could rival it. And yet, I felt completely unfazed. It could, I imagine, have felt like one of the reviled but required parts of a parent’s job description, like writing discipline referrals or serving lunch duty are to teaching (just a whole lot grosser.) Instead, it felt like if one could distill motherhood down to its purest essence, this would be it. There was my son, in pain and afraid, confronted with one of life’s basest demands.  He was on new and frightening territory, unsure of what was happening to him, and so he looked to me for help, relief, understanding.  There was no way I could protect him from this, no way I could make the trial before him disappear. The best I could do was stay by his side and hold his hand. Even as my lungs were bursting with the stench, my heart was bursting with love, compassion, and pride. “Good job, Clayton! You’re doing it! You’re doing it!” Never before had a bowel movement assumed such significance.

                                                                * * *

My first year of college, during track season, I got a stomach bug. Vomiting into the toilet in the dorm bathroom, I missed my mom like I never had before. Years later, I got food poisoning (or Montezuma’s revenge) while working in a cloud forest in Ecuador. As I cleaned up my own puke from around the shared, dirty toilet, trembling with exhaustion, I missed her again, desperately. It also occurred to me to wonder how she’d done it. (I remembered my best friend vomiting on our patio once and how just the smell of it had made me gag. I’d run away, yelling for my mom.) It makes sense to me now. It’s not that mothers are immune to how gross these things are. It’s just that when it comes down to it, the bodily fluids, however disgusting, are nothing compared to the love that boils up when our children need us most.

So... what do you do?

           The other day I received a letter from Wesleyan University, my undergraduate alma mater, with information about an upcoming reunion. Enclosed was a form with pre-printed information that would, I assume, be included in some kind of alumni directory. "Please make any necessary changes and return," it said. It looked good at first: name, address, email... nothing had changed. But then I got to the "occupation" section, with "teacher" listed as my profession and Henderson County Public Schools as my employer. I hesitated before crossing off "Teacher." I mean, can't I still be a teacher, even though I don't have a job? But leaving it there felt disingenuous, like I'd made this decision to take care of my kids full time but wouldn't own up to it. Harder still was knowing what to put after I'd crossed it off. Stay-at-home-mom? Housewife? Homemaker? Daycare provider? Ugh. All of the possible labels felt wrong. I pictured someone at Wesleyan updating the directory and thinking, "She went to Wesleyan to be a 'homemaker?' You've got to be kidding me!" I imagined old classmates pitying my lack of ambition. Hell, sometimes I can't help but question it myself. I graduated summa cum laude with University Honors and now I'm pulling an over-loaded wagon around mindlessly, making dinosaurs pretend to snack on Clayton's toes, singing endless renditions of "The Wheels on the Bus." This is why, I think to myself, so many moms want to work. "I have more to give my child when I have the mental stimulation of work," they say diplomatically. In other words, "Being around my kid(s) all the time I'd die of boredom."
            Nonetheless, as Don gears up for the school year, I find that I am at peace with my decision not to go back to work. Privately, that is. It feels right for myself, my kids, my family. Publicly is another issue. Why does it matter to me what some worker at Wesleyan a thousand miles from here thinks of me? And why do I automatically assume they'd look at me with scorn? I remember when I went to my high school to tell my co-workers I wouldn't be coming back. I had steeled myself for their disappointment, a reaction of surprised or even pitying disbelief that I'd give up a job I so obviously loved. Instead I was touched by the affirmation I received: You'll never regret it; It was the best decision I ever made; It's the hardest job you'll ever do, but it will always be worth it. Many of the working moms I know looked wistful when I told them I'd resigned. More than one told me, "I wish I could do that."
          So why, I wonder, do I fear that, despite so many people's support of my decision and apparent admiration of the "job" I have taken on, I am secretly being looked down on? Why do I always hear the unspoken "just" in front of "stay at home mom?" Is it just my own insecurities that make me feel this way, or am I attuned to some subtle-- or maybe not so subtle-- societal message that being "just" a mom isn't really enough?
         Sometimes I feel like I'm being strangled by history. After all, wasn't it exactly what I'm doing now-- wife at home, taking care of house and kids-- that inspired The Feminine Mystique? All my life I have reaped the benefits of the feminist movement that proclaimed that women could do more, much more, than this. (All my life, too, I have reaped the benefits of having a brilliant mom who put her kids and family ahead of her career.) I remember how in high school a girl who rode my bus confessed one day that all she wanted to do in life was "have kids and keep house." I was amazed, disdainful, pitying... How could she have so little ambition when we finally had the freedom to do whatever it was we wanted?
         And, of course, that's what it comes down to, really. Nobody expects me to do this; I certainly don't have to. But I had the opportunity to ask myself, "What do you want?" and the freedom to choose. I love writing it like that, making it seem so simple, when at times the complexity of the issue overwhelms me. There are questions about housework (Now that I'm home, is it my job to unload the dishwasher?), money (Is it as much mine now as before?), career (How will this hiatus affect mine?), relationships (How do Don and I stay connected when our daily lives are now so different?) society (How do we value the job mothers do and still inspire women to climb to the top?), and craftsmanship (How do I do this job well?). Still, despite all the questions and complexity, there is a simplicity there that I'd do well to cling to. Clayton knows. Tonight at bedtime I talked to him about Townes coming to our house everyday--he's overjoyed at the prospect--when his mom goes to work. "His momma goes to work. His daddy goes to work. My daddy goes to work," he says. "You don't go to work." No, I take care of my kids, I say. "You take care of me, Sylvia, Dee Dee, and Townes!" He lists off the names slowly, thoughtfully, enthusiastically. He has no inkling of the little tendrils of shame I have to shake off every time I tell someone I'm no longer working. With him, there is absolutely no judgement; there is just joy. And that is the lesson for me tonight!

The Long Claws of Looking Good

I watch the neighborhood kids on the waterslide, their lithe, lean bodies glistening in the spray. And there is Clayton with his round face and tubby belly, looking on as they climb and splash, climb and splash. The peditrician hesitated at his last doctor visit when I asked if we needed to be worried about his weight. "Aware, yes," she said. "Worried yet, no." But of course I worry. I don't want Clayton to be one of the fat kids. Even as the number of overweight children grows, I can't imagine that those kids are any less ostracized, ridiculed, or teased than the fat kids with whom I went to school. I never want my son to experience that.

I told my sister once that there was no excuse for letting a dog become obsese, since we humans are in complete control of what and how much our dogs eat. I suppose the same is true of children, although of course it's harder. A dog has a limited repitoire for cajoling more food out of us: snuffing around the kitchen floor for crumbs, laying his drooling muzzle in our laps, licking the bottom of his empty bowl. Clayton, on the other hand,  threw a twenty minute tantrum yesterday when I refused to put more strawberry jam on his PB and J. When I tried to scimp on the cream cheese on his bagel this morning, it did not escape his notice. "I want more cream cheese, Mama," he insisted. I almost refused but then I looked at his bagel-- one half of the extra-thin, whole wheat, low cal variety-- and thought, I wouldn't want it like that, either.

                Plus, he's not even three. And it's not like he eats junk. Sure, he gets the occassional ice-cream treat. He usually has one low-fat graham cracker as an afternoon snack. He, gasp, had french fries with his quesadilla when we went out to dinner last night. But in general he eats like we do-- healthy, vegetarian fare-- without the bowls of ice-cream we enjoy when he's already in bed, the sugary Corn Pops Don eats for breakfast ("That cereal's for grown-ups," we tell him), the chocolate I sneak out of the cupboard when he's not looking.

                Don is convinced there's nothing to worry about, that the weight will come off sooner or later. But I love Clayton so fiercely that I want to protect him from everything. I couldn't stand for him to have to endure the stigma of being fat. So the other day when he wanted a third piece of toast  after his two egg breakfast, I told him no. And then I explained, "If you eat too much, you get fat. And then you can't run fast, or ride your bicycle fast." Running and riding fast are things Clayton really cares about; I could see him considering this. He dropped the request for more toast, but later I wondered if I'd done right. At this age, so much of his understanding of the world is based on what we tell him. I'd never even heard him use the word fat, and already I've helped create for him exactly the kind of negativity around the concept that I want to protect him from.

                When I talked to Don about all this, he said, "I don't want him to look at his belly and feel bad about himself." He's right, of course. I woke up the next morning feeling ashamed, as if the poisonous drip of our beauty culture was already seeping into his world, and that it was I who had let it in.

                So many of my parenting concerns are fleeting. Today Clayton jumped on the trampoline, raced around the house pretending to be the three blind mice, ran up and down the hill behind our neighbor's house again and again after dinner. So he's got some persistent baby fat-- so what? I feel silly for having worried, and yet I'm saddened, too, that our cultural obsession with beauty could reach so deeply into childhood.

                As adults, we feel its claws daily. My friend was recently outraged and embarrassed when at a pre-wedding pedicure, everyone but she got the typical leg massage. "I was the only one with un-shaven legs," she told me, "and I didn't get one." At brunch last week, I looked at my friends' perfect toes and wondered if I, too, should shell out the thirty something bucks on a pedicure. Is this something grown-up women are just supposed to do? I've had attending to my toes on my to-do list for over three weeks, but somehow it's not a top priority when I have a few moments to myself.

                Don likes to joke that  if you wear sweat pants out of the house, you've "given up." Often these days, that’s how I really feel. I lug the kids to the grocery store without changing the stretched out, spit-up stained t-shirt I'm wearing, my unwaxed legs exposed, my toenails dirty and my hair in its perpetual ponytail. I look at my friend's taunt stomach and wonder if maybe I should join a gym, or sneak a little less chocolate. I envy my neighbor's stylishly highlighted hair. My own hasn't been washed in days, the greasy roots hidden under a baseball cap. Every evening I step on the bathroom scale, try to let the numbers reassure me that, even though my stomach bulges beneath my tanktop in a way that even after eighteen months of pregnancy and postpartum I'm still not used to, I am not fat. I'm not stupid, nor anorexix. I can see the outline of my ribs beneath my collar bone. I weigh less now than I have since high school. I know I'm not fat. But that did not stop me from weeding the figure-hugging dresses out of my closet, does not stop me from asking myself and my husband almost daily: "Do I look fat?" Because even if I'm smart enough to know that I'm not,  it sometimes feels like the looking is all that matters.

I remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally when Billy Crystal runs into Meg Ryan after not seeing her since college. "Did you look this good then?" he asks her, and she laughs and shakes her head. As I've gotten older, I've learned to appreciate that line. Not only do we gain distance from our younger selves' fashion disasters, but younger doesn't always mean prettier. Maybe it takes some good long years before we figure out how to really shine in our own skin. Sometimes I haul the kids to the grocery store and I feel good. I'm lucky to have gotten my figure back so quickly; my arms are toned as they haven't been in years from hefting carseats and babies. Plus, I've got three kids, so it doesn't matter how I look. And maybe that's what makes me feel so good.

               

But What Will I Write About?

            I have decided to try to write something weekly, during this, my first full year of full-time mothering. The idea came to me as I was running. I was thinking about the last few weeks of summer vacation, and anticipating the beginning of the school year in an entirely new way, since this time I won't be going back. I thought of my friend's words when I had discussed with her my inner turmoil about whether I should return to my teaching job or resign to take care of my three kids myself. She was whole-hearted in her support of resignation, but she added, "If you can keep writing, I think you'd be happy. Just to do something to keep your brain alive." Sometimes that advice seems like true wisdom-- writing will keep my mind from turning to mush, writing will help me perserve some kind of identity beyond that of "mom." Other times, usually when I collapse into bed exhausted at the end of the day, I wonder if I'm crazy to add one more thing I "have" to do, as if taking care of four kids under three and running a household will not be overwhelming enough.

                And then there is the question, of course, of what I will write. I admit rather sheepishly that I'm inspired by the fictional Carrie of Sex in the City. Granted she doesn't actually have to write her columns; she just quotes a few select lines towards the end of every episode. But if she can find something to say every week about being single in New York, I  figure  the experience of being a stay-at-home mom in a world in which it sometimes feels that almost every other mom works ought to be just as rich.

                I'm worried, though, that my "material" will too closely resemble the laundry list of resentments and complaints that can cycle through my mind on any given day. I don't want my "column" to just be the lastest manifestation of my old carpool buddies' venting sessions. On the other hand, I wonder if my writing will be something like a family photo album-- infinitely interesting to those intimately concerned but often deadly boring for anybody else. I mean, right at this moment I could gripe either that I'm so tired from yet another early morning of nursing babies, or rattle on about how Sylvia is so darn cute smiling at me and wringing  her little hands as she sits in the middle of the floor pulling toys out of a basket.

                That's the thing about writing, though. When I think about writing something, I often think that what I have to say could be said in about two uninspired sentences. I mean, "Sylvia is so cute!" or "I'm so tired!"  is not really all that riveting to anyone but my mom.  But just watching her sitting there, grinning, it occurs to me that just this moment could be the beginning of quite a few reflections. For instance, why do I put her hair in a barette so that it stays out of her eyes instead of cutting it as I surely would a boy's? Don just came in and said, "She looks so feminine with that in her hair," and it's true.  So if gender is truly a social construct that we create, as a certain camp of academics insists, we really do start constructing it very early. Then again, what difference does it make to her, really, if her hair's in a barette or not? At this age, not much. Surely her girl-ness is something more innate.

                "I'm so tired!" turns out to be even richer, once I start mining it.  I'm tired because last night we were out late at our friends' house-- there's a piece there about community, I'm sure, and how hard yet essential it is to maintain social connections even while tredding the swirling waters of parenting young children.

                I'm also tired because Sylvia wanted to nurse at twenty after eleven last night, and then before six this morning, so I spent much of the morning feeling grumpy that I was short on sleep and me-time-deprived, when Don was up until God knows what hour on the computer and didn't roll out of bed until after nine.  My resentment was, as usual, groundless; it wasn't Don's turn to get up with the kids, and it is certainly not his fault that the day before, when it was his turn, I could not get back to sleep after Sylvia woke to nurse at just after six. Still, I am the one whose sleep has been interrupted by nursing every night for the last eight and a half months.  Sometimes all that night nursing just feels like part of the parcel of motherhood. I may be sleep deprived, but I also get to enjoy the special bond that nursing creates, and I am able to soothe my children quickly and easily even when they are at their fussiest. Then again, those hours I spend nursing are just one tiny piece of being a mom. They can't matter; even women who don't nurse are just as much moms. But somehow the little insignificant pieces come together to mean something. There's a reason my two and a half year old son is adamant in his desire for "Momma" to do it-- to read the books, or play with the animals, or take him to the gym. His preference for me over his father right now is not because I'm me, or because I'm female. It's because I'm his "Momma." We both feel that truth deeply, and yet it's a slippery, confusing thing. Does a man raising a child alone or with a partner fill that role of mother just as  completely? Or is there something more animal about it, a maternal instinct in women not readily replicated? Does Don need an elbow when his daughter cries because he just happens to be a heavier sleeper, or does being a woman-- and a mom--make me attuned and and thus responsive to her cries in a way that he can't be?

                No, there will be no shortage of material, I'm sure. The other resources-- time, energy, inclination-- will be the challenges. And then there's the question of who my audience will be.  Am I writing just for the family members and friends who kindly read my little pieces and profess to enjoy them? Or do I maintain the charade of a "column," pretend that I've really got a readership and a deadline so that I'll carry through with this idea? Do I, for example, assume that my readers are familiar with me and the characters in my life, or do I explain things as if to a total stranger? Hmmm... those questions, I assume, will probably answer themselves, if I really manage to muster the will to do this. I should, I think, send this out tonight, so that I plant the seed of expectation. Otherwise I think the idea will go the direction of so many other good intentions.

Why I Quit My Job

             When my twin daughters were about five months old, I knew I had to start thinking about arranging childcare for when I returned to work. We planned on finding a nanny, since three kids in daycare would be just too expensive. Still, I worried about my two-year-old son being on his own with his baby sisters; he played so enthusiastically with kids his own age. It occurred to me that it would be great if we could do a nanny share with someone else with a toddler. Clayton would have a playmate, and we'd save money. But could one person really handle all four kids, and still do the fun ac tivities we were doing regularly? It seemed like a lot to ask, and yet, I would be able to do it, I thought. Surely, if I could do it, someone else could. And then it hit me: I could! I could take in one more child, and the extra income that would bring in would make the difference. We wouldn't be as well off financially as if I went back to work, but we'd have enough to get by without worrying that we wouldn't be able to make ends meet. 

                The moment I realized that possibility-- that I didn't have to go back to work-- the seed was planted. Still, for weeks and weeks it was unclear whether it would ever see the light. I was a teacher! Would I really leave my job, my entire professional identity, to be "just" a mom?  "Now I know why there was a feminist movement," I had joked with my co-workers on a recent visit to my school. "Millions of women losing their minds at home." Sure, not working was  a possibility, but that didn't make it necessary. My son had thrived at daycare, I had told myself and countless others. My father had read some study that couples in which both partners worked were, in general, happier. I had been happier after I'd gone back to work after the birth of my son.

                But now, it wasn't just Clayton. There were three of them! The thought of working full time at a demanding job and running a household of five was daunting. There'd be cooking, laundry, groceries, cleaning, baths, bedtimes... I felt overwhelmed just thinking about it. Weekends would be consumed by the chores we'd be too busy to get to during the week. And what about me? I'd recently started meeting my friend Holly for a run in the woods on Saturday mornings, a sliver of time in the week I'd carved out for myself. I couldn't see keeping that up if I went back to work--my time with my children would be too precious.

                Plus, work could be just that-- work. Going back to work didn't just mean freedom from the constant demands of kids, although that was certainly the gist of my fantasies. I imagined stopping for coffee and donuts on the way to work, lounging at faculty meetings with nothing to do but chat and laugh with colleagues, walking down empty hallways without a stroller or diaper bag. "But you always stress about work," my husband reminded me, and it was true. My job was demanding, relentless, consuming. There'd be planning, grading, scheduling, meetings, gate duty, chaperoning... There'd be days I'd leave the house before my kids woke up, days I'd come home barely in time to put them to bed.  "But you're so lucky," people say, "you have the summers off!" True enough, but by next summer, the girls' infancy would already be over, Clayton would be pushing four!

                Now that the decision is behind me, all the agonizing seems muted. But at the time it was a constant cacophony in my brain, a neverending weighing of pros and cons, a daily flip-flopping. At three o'clock, when Clayton was crying because I'd turned off the videos and I was mindlessly changing yet another diaper, I was sure I would go back to work. I would lose my mind from boredom at home, resent Donald ceaselessly for the freedom he had to leave the house unencumbered, the ten minutes he spent each way in the car without kids, the cups of coffee he could stop for without unloading a van full of kids. Or, pushing Clayton in the swing in a deserted park, I'd feel so lonely. "There's no kids," he would point out, and I would long for the comraderie of co-workers, the thereaupetic venting of my carpool.

             But then there were the other moments: walking into the girls' room when they woke in the morning, and seeing Dee Dee's mouthy grin while she rocked from side to side in her crib, as if simply being awake were the best thing she could imagine. Seeing Sylvia's sudden, exquisite smile transform her aura of seriousness, like the sun breaking through clouds on a gray day. Watching Clayton bring his sisters toys and then congratulate himself, "That was nice of you!" Eating cereal in my pajamas with Clayton in the morning while Don hurriedly made his coffee and left for work, I felt like the priviledged one. He was heading to all the stress of teaching and students and grades; we were headed to the library or the gym or the lake. I almost felt guilty-- this was the life! More and more, I thought of Clayton, the girls, and me as a team, venturing all over town in our minivan. Clayton felt it, too. We'd be getting ready to go somewhere and he'd point at his sisters. "That baby go! And that baby go!" he'd tell me excitedly. I'd get them all loaded up and start the car and Clayton and I would give a little cheer, "Yeah!" Would I really be willing to give up the driver's seat? Even just sitting on the couch with Clayton after the girls had gone back to bed for their morning nap, reading and talking about book after book, I thought, "This is it! These are the moments you don't get back."

                It wasn't all sunshine, but even when Clayton was petulant and whiney-- "Read this book!"-- and I was feeding one girl cereal, nursing another, and reading Clayton a book or telling him yet another story about a choo-choo who meets animals who won't share their food,  I felt strangely gratified. It wasn't rocket science, but I was good at this job.

                The girls are so good and play so independently and  still nap so much, I feel like the moments when I am actively interacting with them individually are few and far between. And so I feel jealously possessive of them-- I do not want their little smiles and giggles directed at someone else. I do not want my attention divided among them for the three hours I'd get to see them if I went back to work, three hours that would be riddled with chores and responsibilities: exercise, laundry, dinner, bedtimes...

                At the end of the year breakfast the other day, which every June our school puts on to honor teachers who are leaving, my colleagues said such nice, generous things. My friend Kristen said that while we were sharing a classroom, she had been inspired by my teaching everyday. Matt, my principal, said I was probably "the finest teacher in the school," and John said I was "among the very best." It stroked my ego, hearing such things said about my work, even knowing them for the exagerations that they are. I feel like I sucked them up like nectar, knowing that it was the last time for a while that I would hear such compliments articulated, the last time that I would feel such pride in a professional identity, the last time that I would feel the value I had in a community of people working to do good in the world.

                The value of good mothering is less defined. Probably the kids would be fine either way. I like to think that the hour Clayton and I spend reading books in the morning is making a difference for him, that the stories he begs me for aren't just a way to kill the boredom he feels being stuck at home with his mom and baby sisters. But you never know. I think of my co-worker's frustration with his unmotivated, dead beat sons. Who knows what makes a child turn from an endearing little boy who makes you grit your teeth with love countless times a day to an infuriating teenager whose parents have given up on him? Who knows? But I don't want to look back one day and wonder if it would have helped if I had been around more.

                People sometimes talk about this decision as if it is a selfless one. "This is the hardest job you'll ever do." "Your kids will thank you for it." And I do remember feeling grateful that my mom was home with us, and pitying those latch-key kids who couldn't go home after school. But still, I feel that really this decision is about me. I don't want to feel overwhelmed with the conflicting demands of home and work. I don't want to have to leave the house in the morning without seeing my kids. I want the chance to savor every moment of these fleeting years when they are growing so much everyday. Even the things that drew me back to work-- the mental stimulation, the professional identity, the camraderie and adult converstation-- that was about me, too. Making a difference for my students didn't even make it to the pros of going back list. I hope my being home makes a difference for my kids, but ultimately what tipped the scale was not wanting to lose out on this. I can be a teacher again, for years and years and years. This is the one chance I get to be a full-time mom to my little kids.

                It seems lots of my life decisions are driven by a similar motivation. I stayed in Italy for another year for the experience of it; college would always be there. I moved to the East Coast for something different; I was tired of the lack of community I felt in the Bay Area and longed for the chance to put down deeper roots. In the hard decisions, a thirst for a new experience has always won out, has been the deciding factor against the status quo. In some ways, this isn't so different. I want this experience, I want what a friend of mine described as the "golden years" of her time at home with her kids, I want to one day look back at these years as a time to be treasured. But it's also about love, a gut-wrenching, teeth-clenching love that convinces me again and again that I belong with my children, and that, right now, they belong with me.