Unsung Gifts of Motherhood
Mother's Day, for me, is filled with a conflicting thoughts & feelings. Party because I struggled over 12 years with almost intractable infertility issues.
My own mother had a personality disorder whose negative aspects were focused on me. I never told her I was an infertility patient. I couldn't, it would have brought with it a lot more verbal abuse than I was already taking for simply being alive. Once I finally did have children I realized I would never feel "normal" - I would always be infertile because I could not do easily what most other women do.
One thing she said to me a great deal was "you owe me." Over and over I was reminded that I 'owed her' for working to provide a home for myself & my sibling, raising me and most of all: for having me in the first place. Especially since I was a "freak, a loser, ugly" and "no man would ever want" me.
So it was to her tremendous shock when she had this conversation with me when my children were just a few months old:
Today one of my children gave me some gifts that showed me in their short time so far on this planet, they knows me and understands me better than my own mother ever did.
I feel good about my relationship with my kids. My children have made me more myself than ever (despite all that disability has taken away). Validation I desperately needed after years of relationship abuses. And for that, I owe them.
The Political Crucible of Motherhood
The longer I’m more actively involved in politics, the more certain I am that the best preparation I ever had for participation was not the political science major I undertook in college, nor the journalism experience I had as a young professional, nor even the advisory role I filled in a (failed) Congressional primary campaign back in the 1980’s.
From the moment a child is born, you are forced to put your own needs (primarily sleep, in the beginning) on hold. You immediately begin the task of balancing long-term and short-term goals, weighing, for example, the need to bring income in for the growing family against the commitment to spend time with your child, or your own requirement down the road a bit for rehabilitative solitude against the constant chatter of a toddler just discovering language.
You learn to gauge your limits of self-sacrifice, the places where diminishing returns set in, where you’re being a plain old mean person because you’ve embraced the role of persecuted-by-sippy-cup-wielding-beings martyr. You learn to give more of yourself than you ever imagined yourself capable of giving, but if you want to bring your child to adulthood without you doing a stint or two in an asylum, you also learn to say, "No." Quite often, in fact.
More than anything, you learn to explain yourself, especially about those "No’s." Over and over, in a dozen different ways, using scores of different metaphors to get your point across, you begin to blend your child into a family culture, and later that of society, by articulating and examining your own deep beliefs about how we all hang together as a unit.
You are forced to explain very, very consciously for the first time responsibilities to self and others, about the common good of the family, about why it’s important that your 10-year-old forego a slumber party in order to visit a boring grandparent.
Add another child to the mix and you’ve truly set up a parallel with the single-issue political groups on a painful personal level, when you find yourself explaining to your daughter that the family’s financial commitment to providing piano lessons for her brother precludes at this time the ability to pay for an expensive summer camp she wants to attend. Oy.
Such conflicts are constant and recurring, and they make the shouldering and shoving at the Democratic interest table look like a friendly game of contract bridge. You learn to barter, broker power or die.
In my own case, I went more whole hog on the parent thing than most here, I suspect. I have four children–two boys and two girls–with a 14-year age spread between the oldest and the youngest. I made the decision to stop working altogether for a decade-and-a-half to stay at home, which pushed us into living under the poverty level for a family of four ... when we were a family of six (a decision, I realize, not for everyone but one I am forever grateful now that I made).
The financially possible was extremely limited, and this forced us as a family unit to find creative ways to entertain ourselves (God bless you, public libraries) and to provide for necessities. Again, an invaluable, practical political lesson when transposed to the political sphere.
I also found myself relying on the older kids to help out with the younger, and while I admit there was a bit of grumbling during those years, they were surprisingly willing to take something of a leadership role in the family, testing their own capabilities and sharing their interests, enjoying being looked up to by their younger siblings–much like people-powered peer politics today. (Today, all four of them are each others’ biggest fans and admirers despite quite different lifestyles and choices. Although the piano lesson issue, I confess, will not die.)
And of course, there’s the constant reminder as a parent that you’re ideally modeling sterling character in action.
There is more to this than just biological imperative about making the world a better place for your own genetic progeny. The pattern of thinking, cooperating and sacrificing becomes part of your identity, as does the fulfillment and satisfaction one receives from living it out.
And if Markos can put pictures of his adorable infant and toddler on the site, I’m hoping I can get away with calling out my beloved kids by name—Matthew, Faith, Jackson and Micaela—and saying:
susang@dailykos.com
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE
My own mother had a personality disorder whose negative aspects were focused on me. I never told her I was an infertility patient. I couldn't, it would have brought with it a lot more verbal abuse than I was already taking for simply being alive. Once I finally did have children I realized I would never feel "normal" - I would always be infertile because I could not do easily what most other women do.
One thing she said to me a great deal was "you owe me." Over and over I was reminded that I 'owed her' for working to provide a home for myself & my sibling, raising me and most of all: for having me in the first place. Especially since I was a "freak, a loser, ugly" and "no man would ever want" me.
So it was to her tremendous shock when she had this conversation with me when my children were just a few months old:
Her: "Don't ever forget to remind your children what you are going through raising them. Make sure they know they owe you!"When I read this article it reminded me of that conversation. I have become a maker of agreements (not always a perfect one), a debater, a neutral arbitor, a peace negotiator and someone who tries to see everyone's side and see everyone's point of view, whether I agree or not, in addition to fielding some insensitive or inane comments from the world at large. Most of all - I strive to be a good example. Something anyone who is a political animal and a parent needs to be.
Me: "No, I owe them. I owe them everything."
Her: "That's absurd."
Me: "I am sorry you feel that way. But I owe them everything. I had them. I brought them here. And its my job as a parent to raise loving, god-fearing, responsible human beings who contribute to society. They owe me zip."
Her: (Look of shock... walked away sulking... raged at me an hour later for something unrelated)
Today one of my children gave me some gifts that showed me in their short time so far on this planet, they knows me and understands me better than my own mother ever did.
I feel good about my relationship with my kids. My children have made me more myself than ever (despite all that disability has taken away). Validation I desperately needed after years of relationship abuses. And for that, I owe them.
The Political Crucible of Motherhood
The longer I’m more actively involved in politics, the more certain I am that the best preparation I ever had for participation was not the political science major I undertook in college, nor the journalism experience I had as a young professional, nor even the advisory role I filled in a (failed) Congressional primary campaign back in the 1980’s.
No, the most practical experience was provided by parenting.
From the moment a child is born, you are forced to put your own needs (primarily sleep, in the beginning) on hold. You immediately begin the task of balancing long-term and short-term goals, weighing, for example, the need to bring income in for the growing family against the commitment to spend time with your child, or your own requirement down the road a bit for rehabilitative solitude against the constant chatter of a toddler just discovering language.
You learn to gauge your limits of self-sacrifice, the places where diminishing returns set in, where you’re being a plain old mean person because you’ve embraced the role of persecuted-by-sippy-cup-wielding-beings martyr. You learn to give more of yourself than you ever imagined yourself capable of giving, but if you want to bring your child to adulthood without you doing a stint or two in an asylum, you also learn to say, "No." Quite often, in fact.
More than anything, you learn to explain yourself, especially about those "No’s." Over and over, in a dozen different ways, using scores of different metaphors to get your point across, you begin to blend your child into a family culture, and later that of society, by articulating and examining your own deep beliefs about how we all hang together as a unit.
You are forced to explain very, very consciously for the first time responsibilities to self and others, about the common good of the family, about why it’s important that your 10-year-old forego a slumber party in order to visit a boring grandparent.
Add another child to the mix and you’ve truly set up a parallel with the single-issue political groups on a painful personal level, when you find yourself explaining to your daughter that the family’s financial commitment to providing piano lessons for her brother precludes at this time the ability to pay for an expensive summer camp she wants to attend. Oy.
Such conflicts are constant and recurring, and they make the shouldering and shoving at the Democratic interest table look like a friendly game of contract bridge. You learn to barter, broker power or die.
In my own case, I went more whole hog on the parent thing than most here, I suspect. I have four children–two boys and two girls–with a 14-year age spread between the oldest and the youngest. I made the decision to stop working altogether for a decade-and-a-half to stay at home, which pushed us into living under the poverty level for a family of four ... when we were a family of six (a decision, I realize, not for everyone but one I am forever grateful now that I made).
The financially possible was extremely limited, and this forced us as a family unit to find creative ways to entertain ourselves (God bless you, public libraries) and to provide for necessities. Again, an invaluable, practical political lesson when transposed to the political sphere.
I also found myself relying on the older kids to help out with the younger, and while I admit there was a bit of grumbling during those years, they were surprisingly willing to take something of a leadership role in the family, testing their own capabilities and sharing their interests, enjoying being looked up to by their younger siblings–much like people-powered peer politics today. (Today, all four of them are each others’ biggest fans and admirers despite quite different lifestyles and choices. Although the piano lesson issue, I confess, will not die.)
And of course, there’s the constant reminder as a parent that you’re ideally modeling sterling character in action.
Children are heat-seeking missiles for hypocrisy; try lying on the phone to get out of a dreaded social engagement while an 8-year-old is looking you in the eye. These little people, they keep you as honest as you are capable of being, not a bad reminder for the rough-and-tumble of high stakes political commentary and action.But the biggest boon to surviving parenthood are the habits fostered, of thinking communally, taking responsibility for shared space, for communicating values, for advising practical action. Here’s a truism from a parent who is in the process of launching at long last her youngest into the world:
You continue the pattern of caring for something bigger than yourself long after your day-to-day involvement with your specific children is over.I suspect this is a large gift to the progressive movement overlooked and unrecognized, and you see it played out as more and more women who’ve raised a family either enter electoral politics or take to political activism (think Cindy Sheehan).
There is more to this than just biological imperative about making the world a better place for your own genetic progeny. The pattern of thinking, cooperating and sacrificing becomes part of your identity, as does the fulfillment and satisfaction one receives from living it out.
Mothers (and some fathers, of course, but mostly mothers as our society functions now) have found that the qualities they exercised for years in the context of family dynamics—struggles for fairness, equitable distribution of such limited resources as time and money, shifting of broad attention from long-term goals to immediate crises (a child’s serious health problem), the need to get the whole "coalition" that makes up a family on the same cooperative page—these are invaluable skills in a human being. Transferring them for use in a larger public sphere feels not only natural, but at some level imperative.In light of all this, I’m going to do a reverse on Mother’s Day, and honor my children instead of expecting cards and calls and carnations from them. For all my failings (too numerous to recount), they have made me a vastly superior human being than I would have been otherwise, pulling strengths out of me I never knew I had and giving me a ride on one of life’s greatest and most wondrous adventures.
And if Markos can put pictures of his adorable infant and toddler on the site, I’m hoping I can get away with calling out my beloved kids by name—Matthew, Faith, Jackson and Micaela—and saying:
You four have made my entire life so much more than it would have been without you. You have made me alive and aware, reflective and political, less selfish, more patient and a far more responsible citizen of the world than I would have been without the examples of your unique lives unfolding in front of me day by day and hour by hour.As always, you four, thank you for being born. And damn it, don’t you ever, ever forget to vote.
susang@dailykos.com
CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE
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