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Mamaphobic: The High-Maintenance Lessons of a Low-Maintenance Kid

Only so much do I know, as I have lived.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

My son Clyde is almost three, and the other day we had our first official out-and-out scuffle. I guess he's a bit of a late bloomer in the tantrum arena because it really snuck up on me. You know, because I thought somehow he and I, ever-evolved creatures that I like to think we are, might get around that whole messy issue of tantrums. That's because I've gotten away with a few things in mamahood. He's gone nice and easy on me through many of the common parenting "tough spots," but the other day it became apparent that Clyde, like most of his peers, is going to experiment with more fun features of his character as we go along, and I have plenty of upcoming stumbles to endure.

Over the years, while my sister-in-law talked about losing sleep in motherhood (my nieces are just not full-night sleepers and never have been), I averted my eyes, changed the subject, and avoided mention of the fact that after the first month of Clyde's life, I barely lost a wink. After we got past a bad bout of breastfeeding drama and he learned to latch on, we were home free, and our whole house slept virtually through every night. When he woke up in his bassinet, I would pull him into bed and nurse him while we both slept. Most nights, my husband or I would then wake up, put him back in his bassinet, and return to sleep ourselves. I could count on both hands and maybe a couple of toes the number of times since birth that he's woke in the night with more than just a small, short whimper or a quick holler for the verbal comfort that mom and dad are still somewhere in the house. He has always gone to bed easily at naptime and at bedtime. In fact, he often says, "Mommy, I want to go to sleep," when we push past his scheduled sleep times. Now I'm not bragging (in fact, I'm knocking furiously on wood here). We haven't had a completely effortless go at this thing. However, Clyde is easy going in many ways. He came that way. It's not something I magically taught him (although sometimes I pretend it is).

When I think about Clyde's character, I often think back to my pre-mama conversation with a co-worker who brought her baby to work as part of the company's Babies in the Workplace program. Her daughter barely made an unhappy peep and was serene all day long. I remember saying, "Wow, she's so easy going. Was your son the same way?" "Yes," she replied, "God knows I couldn't handle anything more." I often wonder if that's what happened to me. I mean, it is my personality to get overwhelmed even by incongruous things like nature and Oprah. And just like my co-worker, I can't even pretend (for very long) that a child's character has anything to do with sheer parenting skill. Is Clyde so easy because I couldn't handle anything more? I'm nodding my head yes, but truthfully most of my mama friends with high-needs children would tell you they often can't handle it either.

In any case, Clyde is trying out a new aspect of his persona. On most days when he is doing something he shouldn't, especially if we're at home and not dealing with the rivalry of other children and tricky social interactions, I say, "Clyde, I want to talk to you," and he stops and listens and then tries to do what I ask. Believe me, it freaks me out that this works too. For extreme situations, I only have to "threaten" a time out or the loss of a prized toy. However, the other day, I asked him to stop taking toys away from his littler cousin, and he shook his head rapidly back and forth and said, "No, no, no!" He didn't want to hear what I had to say. So I tried my usual, "You will go on time out then," which always seemed to do the trick. He wouldn't budge. He held the snatched toy to his chest, "My toy!" I calmly stood, removed the toy, and put him on the couch for a time out, "You are on time out then." He jumped off the couch. I quickly grabbed his hand and led him out of the room for a more distanced time out, which he immediately jumped out of and took off around the table, laughing AT me. That's when it kicked in for me. You know, the age-old, innate (at least for a person who was raised under restrained spanking) No-son-of-mine-is-going-to-DEFY-me anger rush response? I tried to then hold him gently in time out, but he was fighting for his life with every fiber of his tiny being. And there I was fighting back holding him in place more firmly than gently, pressing him into the corner, "You WILL stay on time out so help me God!" I wanted to spank him. I wanted control. We were in our first major physical and emotional rumble.

Now, I'm not proud of this parenting moment, but I did learn a few good things. That anger fuels anger. That I cannot control him and maybe that's not even the point. And many other disciplinary nuances. I laugh now as I think about trying to talk to him later that afternoon after his nap when he was in a better mood, saying, "Remember when we fought earlier? I don't like it when we fight." And he just said, "Ohhhhh." Do I really think we were communicating clearly, like very connected bosom buddies, or that I was getting my precise message across? Of course, I do. After all, our love affair is changing again, and I'm willing to hold onto any thread that I can.

Now, my aim is not really to point out a right or wrong way to deal with temper tantrums. I have absolutely no authority on the subject. This temper tantrum just revealed something bigger to me. Logically, I know Clyde is perfectly normal, going through the stages, hitting that precise developmental stage where he learns he has a say and he starts using his will. In some ways, I'm proud and relieved that he can and will fight for himself. That's not something I taught him either. At the same time, I'm experiencing and struggling with my own textbook developmental mama stages of believing for moments that I can and will "control" him and pondering all the hundreds of reasons he is vehemently "defying" me in the moment. You know, all those irrational things like, "He hates me" or "I'm just a bad mom" or mostly shamefully "I will find a way to change this boy's attitude."

A week after this experience, I am not so worried about the tantrum or the ins and outs of discipline styles although I'm sure I'll find my way back there again many more times in Clyde's growing years. Instead, I am struck by this deep feeling of loss. The loss of something between Clyde and me. I was overcome by the thought that we will grow apart and that he may not like me someday. That he will probably, at least a few thousand times, become distant, ignore me, run away (please God only to the backyard), and slam doors in my face. That he will tell me how awful I am and remember everything I ever did wrong as a mother and as a person. And ultimately, on top of it all, he may not be anything like me. After all, we are completely separate people.

This feeling, like most every life-altering emotional experience, no matter how subtle, is hard to take on because it seems common or cliché among all the parents who pioneered before me. These are "the ordinary everyday terrors and miracles of raising a child," as Anna Quindlen put it. I can almost see the other mothers' heads nodding as they read this because they KNOW this, because they've been there, or even because I ain't seen nothing yet. I know you're all absolutely right. However, no matter how much I've read, no matter how often I've heard other people's stories and taken in their wisdom, I didn't truly identify with this sense of loss until I stood here in it. When an experience becomes one's own reality, it feels…it feels… You just wholly and newly feel it. And it hurts like you never could quite imagine. It's not that my experience is bigger; it's just the first time I've actually felt it, and right now this tiny glimpse at another one of life's inevitable realities still feels quite crushing to me.

I've always known he would leave this soft little nest between us. But at the same time, I didn't really know. I hadn't experienced it yet. I have felt twinges over these few years. I clearly remember watching him play in our family room one morning when he had first learned to crawl. He was scurrying about, picking up every tiny hairball, lint tuft, dirt clump, every little thing he could find. He couldn't get enough of the next thing. It was the first time I realized how many things there were for him to find and that in this extended period of time he was not the least bit interested in me. It suddenly dawned on me that these times would grow longer and more often.

Somewhere between the tantrum and today, I was watching the movie House of D (which would have been brilliant had David Duchovny not cast himself) on the couch while Clyde napped. It hit me harder than it would have usually because of my current confliction over me and Clyde's looming separation and the main character Tommy's struggle and sorrow over his too-close/too-far relationship with his depressed and medicated mother. As I watched, the movie just reconfirmed my usual half-empty way of seeing the world. However, in the end, a stranger who inadvertently inspired Tommy to seek out a life of his own told him what his stricken mother would never have had words to explain, what she wouldn't even know unless she could have experienced it. The stranger said, "She understand a boy have to go away before he can come back again." Jesus Christ, there it was.

Every day, it is my job to help Clyde learn to be himself. Every day, I will have to let him go a little bit more. I am the parent, but this frantic and some days even peaceful climb is not about me. It is about Clyde. It is about letting him be, not teaching him to be, the person he was born to be. Easier written about than accomplished, believe me. I have no idea how to do such a thing. And if I miraculously find a way to help him get there and it all falls into place, like it usually does one way or another in this strange universe, then Clyde will someday return to me and let me be the mama I was meant to be.



column added on 2005-10-23 :: ::

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