Reflections on a growth industry
by Stephanie Piper
I've been a mother now for many more years than I wasn't one, a distinction which I believe entitles me to make sweeping, authoritative pronouncements that no one will dare dispute.
On the other hand, it may just entitle me to a gardenia corsage and a place of honor at the Shoney's breakfast buffet.
Perks or no perks, I've got tenure in this job. I signed on at 21 with a brand new copy of Dr. Spock and three-dozen cloth diapers. A few decades later, I've got the carefully concealed gray hair and finely tuned motor reflexes of a veteran. I fling my arm across the passenger seat when I slam on the brakes. At street crossings, I reach down for the hand of a small child who stopped being small around 1980. In the supermarket, my head still turns at the cry of "Mommy" from the cereal aisle.
There's a Mother's Day card that I keep in my top drawer as a kind of compass on this long, long trail a-winding. It's from my oldest son, who had the dubious pleasure of being first. "I've really enjoyed watching you grow up over the years," he wrote. We both knew it wasn't exactly a joke.
It's a growth business, motherhood. It pulls you up and shakes you out and turns you into a person you often don't recognize: the fishwife who bellows about lost winter coats and missed curfews; the domestic saint who cleans up unspeakable messes without complaint and stays up all night keeping the fever down. On bad days, it can feel like war: long periods of boredom punctuated by intervals of terror. On good days, it turns you into a better person than you ever thought you could be.
I have no advice for new mothers. I never listened to much myself. I do, however, offer a modest collection of wishes to those who stand at the starting gate.
May you know when the one thing in the world your children need is for you to hold them, tightly.
May you know when the last thing in the world your children need is for you to hold them, tightly.
May you allow them to fail. To deny them occasional sorrow is as cruel as to rob them of joy.
May you fail yourself, loudly and often. May you learn from these failures humility, compassion, and the ability to keep your mouth shut.
May you know the rush of a two-year-old in Oshkosh overalls running towards you with open arms. May you remember that moment on the day when a 15-year-old in size 10 Nikes slams the back door and says, I hate you, Mom.
May you recognize that this is, in fact, the same child.
May you know days on which all of your offspring are simultaneously happy, healthy, and gainfully employed. May these days occur more frequently than the passage of Halley's comet.
May you find yourself someday in the company of loving, loyal adult friends who happen also to be your children, and who—because of you and in spite of you—are gifts to the world.
March 8, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 19
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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