The Nomad Mom Diary

I'm carrying around a LOT of baggage

What Mom Should Have Told Me

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Sniffles. A tissue gets passed across the table.

“We are going through such a hard time right now. His work has been crazy busy and I’ve been home alone with the baby all the time. When he gets home, he just wants to sit back and relax. It makes me crazy! I need him to help me out. I need a break!”

As I sit at the table at starbucks and blatantly eavesdrop on the two moms next to me, I can’t help but have flashbacks to 101 conversations I have had just like this one. Sometimes I am the sniffler. Sometimes I am the one passing the tissue. The script, however, is always the same.

I was chatting with a friend recently about the ups and downs of marriage once you have kids. The stages we are in, the ones we’d been through along the way. We sat and stared at one another and wondered how we could have been so woefully unprepared for the challenge.

Why didn’t someone tell us that children are hell on a marriage. We love the hell out of them and treasure (almost) every moment with them, but we’d be lying if we said that the sleep deprivation, loss of self, loss of privacy and upheaval in lifestyle didn’t have an impact. Having a “good marriage” has not made us immune to the doubts. Why won’t someone tell us if we have what it takes to make it through?

I definitely gave my parents hell. The mother of one of my childhood friends recently reminded me of the time we poured out a 5lb bag of sugar. In my bed. And then proceeded to eat it. My friend and I were so bad that the sugar incident barely stands out. I asked my friend’s mom how they managed to not kill us. She said, “You guys were awful! But, we loved you.” Such a classic mom response.

I wish I had the courage to ask my mom how she really survived. How she juggled two kids, a job, going back for a masters and PhD and a happy marriage. My mom impresses the hell out of me. Her biting wit, her quick mind and the husband that she’s mostly whipped into shape. I am torn between wanting to ask her secret and wanting to stick my fingers in my ears and say “lalalallala” rather than admit that my parents are real people with lives behind closed doors.

I’m willing to bet that a lot of you feel the same. An unspoken awe, a desperate desire to know and an ounce of fear of finding out that she might not have a secret to share.

This is why I write this blog. Someday, years from now, my daughters may go through these same struggles. I suspect that much like my own mom, I won’t have any idea how to tell them that I went through it all too. I’ll tell them, “you guys were awful, but we loved you,” and I’ll smile and walk away.

But before I go, I’ll leave this little book on their table. Late at night they can open it up and read about all the times they made me crazy. All the silly things their father did. They’ll read and laugh and slowly round out the happy stories we’ve shared with the gritty ones that we hid. And they will know. They will know that we thought raising children was hard, at times almost too hard. They will see us for the simple humans that we are and know that everything they are facing is normal. We made it through to the other side and they can too. 

 

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Comments

  4. Leave a comment? Crazy as this might sound……. Our kids were GREAT! They were a constant source of pride! The few times they were “awful” they learned life lessons they never repeated. I’m not saying they were perfect; I’m saying they were human! Mostly they were so understanding of the things we did for them such as my working so that we could have the resources for them to participate in the activities they loved, the vacations they enjoyed, and the cottage living where we truly became a family. Sounds just a little unreal? That’s what I remember as a mother. And you will, too, Nomad Mama! Just you wait and see! YOU will read your blog and be chagrined about what you wrote! You will say REALLY? It wasn’t THAT crazy! HAHAHAHA

  5. YES!!!! for the love of all that’s good, YES!!!! Somewhere in my mess of a blog I wrote about how we procure this false idea of marriage and just keep passing it along, when in reality, no one tells you have gut wrenching it can be! Beautiful, but so messy. Thanks for speaking up!

  6. Beautiful. The love in this post is as clear as pre-pubescent skin. “They’ll read and laugh and slowly round out the happy stories we’ve shared with the gritty ones that we hid.” Yup. Those kids are gonna be just fine. xxx+o

  8. Love this. And absolutely, what a great response. I love my son. He makes me crazy, and sometimes I totally want to do the Homer Simpson strangle thing. And then I think back to when he used to say “Dat-er-pid-er” when we read the Hungry Caterpillar, or how cute he looks when he’s asleep, or how I usually have to wake him up in the morning by tickling him. It kind of balances, but man… sometimes… Why you little–!

  9. I adore this. I love the acknowledgement that even though we are adults, there is still that old plug your ears response when it comes to hearing what our moms have to say. That’s going to be a hard one to accept when it’s our kids plugging their ears!? I think having it written down in ideal so, like you said, they can sneakily read it without admitting it. And, there is also the comfort in knowing that as much as we claimed and swore that we were not and would never be listening, we were taking it all in (against our will) and have in fact become pseudo versions of our own moms.

  10. I think most children never give a second thought to their impact on parents when they eat a bed sheet serving of sugar.

    When we grow up it slowly starts to dawn on us that we may not have been the little charming creatures we pictured ourselves to be… and then the universe exacts its revenge by delivering our miniature selves in the form of our children. We are reminded of this expletive from our own Mothers:
    “I wish you a child like yourself”

  11. The moment I became a mom, the way I viewed my own mother was completely transformed. Every time I face some difficult parenting challenge – be it sleepless nights or a strong-willed toddler – I remember that my mom did it all for me, with a smile on her face (for the most part). The thought makes me stronger.