Maybe it is all about sex as Mr. Freud would have it. Sex, as in gender, is the first thing we know about our babies and the first prompt for our presumptions about their personality and behavior. I can only assume this is why that couple in Canada has decided to bring up a gender neutral child. Good luck!
As a parent you are forced to talk about sex almost as soon as your kid pronounces his or her first word. First we name the body parts that pee and poo and reproduce. It was already hard enough for me to say wee instead of pee and poo instead of poop (Poor Winnie, what did he ever do?). So then I tell Mister Baby that he has a penis but he says he has a willy and insists that I have one too. “No, I really don’t. See?” I say in the bath. “I have a vagina.”
To a six-year-old boy there are no funnier words than poo, bum, willy, fart, etc. and they are great fodder for insults. “Poo-poo head ,wee-wee bum,” one clever little boy will say to which his cohort will respond, “you’re a wee-wee, poo-poo -willy-bum head.” The girls are by no means exempt. When little Renee was given anatomically correct information she put it to good use. Unfortunately she did so at a friend of her mother’s house, a friend who is particularly reserved. The girls were playing nicely upstairs while the mothers drank tea downstairs. The girls thought it would be funny (after a stage whispered conference) to call the moms names. Down the stairs came “Poo head,” followed by giggles and, “Mommy you’re a vulva head!”
Every parent has to decide what they tell their children and when - although why anyone would call anything a front bottom is beyond me. It is not my job to hand out reproductive information to five year olds, especially other people’s five year olds. However, like many other rules, this is one I have transgressed. In my defense I must point out that this lapse occurred in the midst Dante’s forgotten tenth ring of hell that is Disneyland Paris, located between the circles of greed and rage.
We were a party of five, Mister Baby and I, my friend, her daughter and her daughter’s friend, Francesca. After a nerve-fraying day of lines and whines, we gorged ourselves on monstrous towers of cotton candy (another line). Francesca and I needed the loo (another line) and, probably inappropriately, she and I used the same toilet, as I often do with Mister Baby. While I was weeing, Francesca asked me what the box on the wall was for. “Well, women’s bodies prepare to have a baby every month and if they don’t, our bodies get rid of the extra stuff they don’t need and blood comes out. We use a pad to soak it up and they go in there.” Somehow I knew that this was a no-no, which my friend confirmed, scolding, “It’s up to her mother to tell her about that.”
Yes, it is, so why hasn’t she told her yet? It’s not like she’s two! She’ll be a pregnant teenager in eight years, hurry up! Instead, she lets her go to the make believe world of Disneyland where the ‘Parade of Dreams’ is accompanied by the sound of children’s imaginations being sucked out of their heads and replaced with sexism, consumerism and diabetes!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Not Guilty (January 2007)
I get to the Natural Café before the Otha Mothas and surreptitiously close the door. I pop Mister Baby in the ‘play corner’ and order a sandwich and cappuccino. There’s only one other kid there with his mother so I figure Mister Baby can’t do too much damage. I return after two minutes and the Otha Mutha tells me that Mister Baby has gone into the bathroom area. I find him ‘helping’ the workmen who are sawing and drilling a new door. He sees me coming and scurries away, almost upsetting the open container of vegetable oil that is propping open the dish room door.
The waiter brings my sandwich but delivers my coffee to a table outside, latching open the door. Mister Baby wanders over and plucks some chicken from my sandwich. Meike arrives with Anya. In the commotion of hellos and hasn’t he/she grown and when was the last time I saw you, the waiter brings the cold foamy coffee to our table and Mister Baby slips out of the open door. I lure him back inside with fragrant chicken in my hand and close the door.
I get in two bites of sandwich in while Meike passes around some dry oat cakes to the kids. Mister Baby rejects his, steals Anya’s, rejects that and grabs more chicken. I slurp some coffee and get in another bite. “I just had my lunch but maybe I’ll get a coffee,” says Meike. I nod, my mouth full of baguette. Mister Baby follows Anya to the play area where they find some remaindered focaccia on the floor and start parcelling it out. We remove it, proffer more chicken in its stead and go back to trying to have a conversation. The Otha Mutha’s baby starts squealing. My back is to the play corner so I look at Meike: “Was that Mister Baby?” “I don’t think so,” she says. I go over: “That wasn’t mine was it?” “Oh no, he’s fine,” she says, crooning to her son. I know Mister Baby’s fine, he’s always fine; it’s the other kids I have to worry about.
Helen belatedly shows up with a serenely napping Isabella so Mister Baby decides he wants to play with her. He’s just kissing her which is sweet and as she’s asleep she’s being more receptive than usual but I can see his dirty mitts heading for her face. We want Isabella to stay asleep despite the fact that when she’s awake, she just sits in her mother’s lap - lucky old Helen - but more importantly, we don’t want her to undergo scarification at the tender age of 19 months. “Here’s some more chicken,” I distract him.
Helen kindly offers to look after Mister Baby so I can eat the rest of my sandwich which now consists of lettuce, tomato and bread. Thank you, thank you, I munch while I watch Helen not see Mister Baby go behind the counter and then back to the door. The waiter, with an exasperated look, latches the door open again, not seeing Mister Baby merrily slip out behind him. An old man, on the other hand, does see him but can do little to deter Mister Baby from running toward his beloved cars rushing to and fro on the high street. Helen gamely fetches him a time or two until my coffee is done and I’m back on duty.
Mister Baby grabs an orange from a basket conveniently at his level by the cash register and takes a bite. As we’ve now bought it, we may as well eat it and since it’s messy, we may as well eat it on the street. Mister Baby picks the back alley and it’s a fun game chasing him out of the back of the MacDonald’s dumpsters and away from the pile of puke: “No, Mister Baby, that’s pavement pizza, not eating pizza.” I herd him into the parking lot of an adjacent building where he hands me the chewed and sucked husks of orange segment and blackens his hands on car wheels and then we return to the café.
Isabella still hasn’t woken up but Anya, as per usual, is following Mister Baby in every mischievous move out the front door and as many times as we close it, the hapless waiter opens it again. Mister Baby grabs another orange and before I can stop him, bites through the skin. Helen has the bright idea of going to the playground so they’ll be at least corralled and maybe we can chat. Fat chance, but we’ll give it a whirl.
The nearest playground, otherwise known as Needle Park, is only popular due to its location. The jungle gym is fine and the slide is nice enough but there are only two swings for babies and behind the boarded up canteen is littered with used condoms and the odd syringe. I know this because Mister Baby is inexorably drawn to this disgusting corner and it’s a lot of work to flurry him away. My efforts are hampered by the fact that there’s a line for the swings and the nannies in possession seem to be impervious to the glares of the polite English moms and squealing toddlers.
We stand in mommy formation with our backs to each other, facing our respective toddlers and occasionally darting out to spot them as they precariously scale the jungle gym or muscle their way through to go down the slide or try to climb up the slide as a four year old is barrelling down. We are fast coming to the conclusion that perhaps we should go out for dinner some night so that at least one of us can complete a sentence. Personally I have my doubts about this; I think my brain now only works in 30 second spurts, anything more than that might be too much pressure and I might just freeze up. However, I’m sure there will be wine to grease the wheels.
Anya is trying to scale the jungle gym but is too slow for the Great White toddler who has lumbered up behind her. He grabs her mop of blond hair and tugs her off the first rung. She lands in a ragdoll heap on the ground behind him. Mieke leaps across the playground to her howling bairn.
Helen and I stare stricken at the wreckage. “The good thing about that,” I say to Helen, “is that it wasn’t Mister Baby.” She can barely hear me over the din.
I leave while the leaving’s good and reflect upon another successful day: no maimings, no hospital visits.
The waiter brings my sandwich but delivers my coffee to a table outside, latching open the door. Mister Baby wanders over and plucks some chicken from my sandwich. Meike arrives with Anya. In the commotion of hellos and hasn’t he/she grown and when was the last time I saw you, the waiter brings the cold foamy coffee to our table and Mister Baby slips out of the open door. I lure him back inside with fragrant chicken in my hand and close the door.
I get in two bites of sandwich in while Meike passes around some dry oat cakes to the kids. Mister Baby rejects his, steals Anya’s, rejects that and grabs more chicken. I slurp some coffee and get in another bite. “I just had my lunch but maybe I’ll get a coffee,” says Meike. I nod, my mouth full of baguette. Mister Baby follows Anya to the play area where they find some remaindered focaccia on the floor and start parcelling it out. We remove it, proffer more chicken in its stead and go back to trying to have a conversation. The Otha Mutha’s baby starts squealing. My back is to the play corner so I look at Meike: “Was that Mister Baby?” “I don’t think so,” she says. I go over: “That wasn’t mine was it?” “Oh no, he’s fine,” she says, crooning to her son. I know Mister Baby’s fine, he’s always fine; it’s the other kids I have to worry about.
Helen belatedly shows up with a serenely napping Isabella so Mister Baby decides he wants to play with her. He’s just kissing her which is sweet and as she’s asleep she’s being more receptive than usual but I can see his dirty mitts heading for her face. We want Isabella to stay asleep despite the fact that when she’s awake, she just sits in her mother’s lap - lucky old Helen - but more importantly, we don’t want her to undergo scarification at the tender age of 19 months. “Here’s some more chicken,” I distract him.
Helen kindly offers to look after Mister Baby so I can eat the rest of my sandwich which now consists of lettuce, tomato and bread. Thank you, thank you, I munch while I watch Helen not see Mister Baby go behind the counter and then back to the door. The waiter, with an exasperated look, latches the door open again, not seeing Mister Baby merrily slip out behind him. An old man, on the other hand, does see him but can do little to deter Mister Baby from running toward his beloved cars rushing to and fro on the high street. Helen gamely fetches him a time or two until my coffee is done and I’m back on duty.
Mister Baby grabs an orange from a basket conveniently at his level by the cash register and takes a bite. As we’ve now bought it, we may as well eat it and since it’s messy, we may as well eat it on the street. Mister Baby picks the back alley and it’s a fun game chasing him out of the back of the MacDonald’s dumpsters and away from the pile of puke: “No, Mister Baby, that’s pavement pizza, not eating pizza.” I herd him into the parking lot of an adjacent building where he hands me the chewed and sucked husks of orange segment and blackens his hands on car wheels and then we return to the café.
Isabella still hasn’t woken up but Anya, as per usual, is following Mister Baby in every mischievous move out the front door and as many times as we close it, the hapless waiter opens it again. Mister Baby grabs another orange and before I can stop him, bites through the skin. Helen has the bright idea of going to the playground so they’ll be at least corralled and maybe we can chat. Fat chance, but we’ll give it a whirl.
The nearest playground, otherwise known as Needle Park, is only popular due to its location. The jungle gym is fine and the slide is nice enough but there are only two swings for babies and behind the boarded up canteen is littered with used condoms and the odd syringe. I know this because Mister Baby is inexorably drawn to this disgusting corner and it’s a lot of work to flurry him away. My efforts are hampered by the fact that there’s a line for the swings and the nannies in possession seem to be impervious to the glares of the polite English moms and squealing toddlers.
We stand in mommy formation with our backs to each other, facing our respective toddlers and occasionally darting out to spot them as they precariously scale the jungle gym or muscle their way through to go down the slide or try to climb up the slide as a four year old is barrelling down. We are fast coming to the conclusion that perhaps we should go out for dinner some night so that at least one of us can complete a sentence. Personally I have my doubts about this; I think my brain now only works in 30 second spurts, anything more than that might be too much pressure and I might just freeze up. However, I’m sure there will be wine to grease the wheels.
Anya is trying to scale the jungle gym but is too slow for the Great White toddler who has lumbered up behind her. He grabs her mop of blond hair and tugs her off the first rung. She lands in a ragdoll heap on the ground behind him. Mieke leaps across the playground to her howling bairn.
Helen and I stare stricken at the wreckage. “The good thing about that,” I say to Helen, “is that it wasn’t Mister Baby.” She can barely hear me over the din.
I leave while the leaving’s good and reflect upon another successful day: no maimings, no hospital visits.
Older Mom (November 2006)
They say there’s no perfect time to have kids, but some times are clearly worse than others: teen pregnancy does no one any favors and women in their 50s and 60s having babies boggles the mind and raises all kinds of questions, (the first being: WHY?). That leaves the two other age groups of new mothers, the young (20s & early 30s) and the older (late 30s and 40s). There are pros and cons to both but I fall into the latter camp so I’m naturally biased.
It might be nice to have had children younger. I could demurely protest when I was mistaken for the sister of the handsome, if surly, teenager at my side. But that youthful dew would surely evaporate in the face of his staggering college bills and I would sag, literally, at the thought that I will have to work for another 25 years to pay for it all. No thank you!
I obviously felt some ambivalence about having children, as I’m sure I could have managed to get pregnant before the ripe old age of 37. But I did the usual things: moved to New York, worked, traveled and dated. After numerous frogs I finally met my prince when I was 29 but it took awhile for him to make the leap across the pond from London. It took even longer for him to pop the question and after we were married, I wanted to enjoy being married for awhile, just the two of us. Besides, we were busy New Yorkers, rushing here and there; going out every night. Who had time for kids?
I like to call myself a late bloomer, but in reality, I am merely the world’s worst procrastinator. And on top of that, I’m not terribly fond of change. But that old biological clock was ticking, not demanding to have a kid, but whispering that I’d regret it if I didn’t. It seemed as good a time as any. On one hand, I was ready for a lifestyle change, yet on the other, I was keenly aware of what I was giving up. This is the biggest difference between older and younger moms. If you have a kid in your 20’s, you haven’t started living your own life yet, so your adulthood becomes defined by parenthood. But see, I had already defined myself, thank you very much, and it wasn’t as a mom.
I don’t think age matters one iota in the first humbling months of new motherhood - sleep deprivation hits us all like a ton of bricks. But as they grow, the advantages of being older become apparent. Your first baby is like having a really ornery boss and since I’ve worked for one or two, I know you have to either anticipate his needs and placate his rages or quit – not an option with a baby. You just have to roll with the punches, hair pulling and howling that is babyhood, and not take it personally.
In some ways, your work experience can, however, work against you: gone is the sense of accomplishment, of starting and completing a single task within a reasonable amount of time. Let alone performing just one task at a time, and with two arms, no less! The only tasks I do get to complete from start to finish (like cleaning the kitchen floor three times a day) are so repetitive that they give me mental carpal tunnel syndrome, but never mind, that could happen to anybody; age is no barrier to boredom.
If I get to sleep no later than 7 at night and drink a vat of coffee, I still have the energy of a 25 year old, and the wisdom (such as it is) that has come with my age makes me a better parent. I’m more relaxed: bad things happen in the world but most kids survive, and when they don’t it’s not because they ate more dirt than vegetables at 19 months. As a new parent everyone throws advice your way, invariably unsolicited, and as an older, more formed person, I feel more adept at discerning what’s useful for me and my parenting style. It’s always helpful to talk to people in the same situation (misery loves company?) and although most of the moms my age in my London neighbourhood are on their third or fourth kid and have neither time nor interest in us newcomers, there are a few of us. We band together to share our secrets, joys, doubts and frustrations - like teenage girls talking about boys (and talking is all they ought to be doing!).
The best advice I have received to date has been to pretend the cameras are rolling and do the best you can. And ultimately, that is all we parents can do, the best we can, young or old. I just hope no one accuses me of being my son’s grandmother!
It might be nice to have had children younger. I could demurely protest when I was mistaken for the sister of the handsome, if surly, teenager at my side. But that youthful dew would surely evaporate in the face of his staggering college bills and I would sag, literally, at the thought that I will have to work for another 25 years to pay for it all. No thank you!
I obviously felt some ambivalence about having children, as I’m sure I could have managed to get pregnant before the ripe old age of 37. But I did the usual things: moved to New York, worked, traveled and dated. After numerous frogs I finally met my prince when I was 29 but it took awhile for him to make the leap across the pond from London. It took even longer for him to pop the question and after we were married, I wanted to enjoy being married for awhile, just the two of us. Besides, we were busy New Yorkers, rushing here and there; going out every night. Who had time for kids?
I like to call myself a late bloomer, but in reality, I am merely the world’s worst procrastinator. And on top of that, I’m not terribly fond of change. But that old biological clock was ticking, not demanding to have a kid, but whispering that I’d regret it if I didn’t. It seemed as good a time as any. On one hand, I was ready for a lifestyle change, yet on the other, I was keenly aware of what I was giving up. This is the biggest difference between older and younger moms. If you have a kid in your 20’s, you haven’t started living your own life yet, so your adulthood becomes defined by parenthood. But see, I had already defined myself, thank you very much, and it wasn’t as a mom.
I don’t think age matters one iota in the first humbling months of new motherhood - sleep deprivation hits us all like a ton of bricks. But as they grow, the advantages of being older become apparent. Your first baby is like having a really ornery boss and since I’ve worked for one or two, I know you have to either anticipate his needs and placate his rages or quit – not an option with a baby. You just have to roll with the punches, hair pulling and howling that is babyhood, and not take it personally.
In some ways, your work experience can, however, work against you: gone is the sense of accomplishment, of starting and completing a single task within a reasonable amount of time. Let alone performing just one task at a time, and with two arms, no less! The only tasks I do get to complete from start to finish (like cleaning the kitchen floor three times a day) are so repetitive that they give me mental carpal tunnel syndrome, but never mind, that could happen to anybody; age is no barrier to boredom.
If I get to sleep no later than 7 at night and drink a vat of coffee, I still have the energy of a 25 year old, and the wisdom (such as it is) that has come with my age makes me a better parent. I’m more relaxed: bad things happen in the world but most kids survive, and when they don’t it’s not because they ate more dirt than vegetables at 19 months. As a new parent everyone throws advice your way, invariably unsolicited, and as an older, more formed person, I feel more adept at discerning what’s useful for me and my parenting style. It’s always helpful to talk to people in the same situation (misery loves company?) and although most of the moms my age in my London neighbourhood are on their third or fourth kid and have neither time nor interest in us newcomers, there are a few of us. We band together to share our secrets, joys, doubts and frustrations - like teenage girls talking about boys (and talking is all they ought to be doing!).
The best advice I have received to date has been to pretend the cameras are rolling and do the best you can. And ultimately, that is all we parents can do, the best we can, young or old. I just hope no one accuses me of being my son’s grandmother!
My One and Only (October 2006)
“Is it your first?” everyone asked when I was pregnant. And my last, I thought. “Is he your first?” asks the Otha Motha at the supermarket. And only, I think. Her 10 month old girl smiles up at me; I cringe at her eczema encrusted limbs.
“How about you?”
“Oh no, my other daughter is 3 and I’m done. Are you having another?” she asks expectantly.
I candidly express my reticence: my age and the difficulty of the first year in particular.
“Oh you don’t look your age,” she butters me up (I had bathed and was wearing massive sunglasses) and then pithily dishes up: “Well if you don’t, he’ll grow up and hate you.”
Hate me, why would he hate me? He gets daily showers of ‘I love you’ and doesn’t have to share with any one save the cat. He might feel pressure, but hatred, I think not.
“Are you going to have another baby?” Mieke asks me over coffee in the park.
“Are you nuts? I don’t even know where this one is,” I answer, looking around until I spot Mister Baby stealing a tricycle. “I seriously doubt I could keep track of any more.”
“But everyone says the second one is so much easier,” she says as her daughter clambers onto Mister Baby’s back to get at the bike.
“How much easier can it be? Do the math, there’d still be two!” I counter as Mister Baby drags her daughter off the tricycle by the hair, steps over her and rides away.
I tally the pros and cons of having another child as babyhood slips from Mister Baby’s body. I conclude that it would be great for him and suck for me. I’d like a house filled with life and noise and activity, but what I miss most about life before Mister Baby is reading and having an attention span longer than it takes to make toast (and that’s generous). ‘They play with each other so you can do other things,’ so the argument goes. Like what? Climb Mount Everest of a morning? What they mean is that I can clean and cook some more. And while I love my siblings now we’re older - most of the time - the thing I remember most was the constant squabbling. The ‘she’s-on-my-side’ whine from the back seat followed by the bellowing of: “Don’t make me pull over!”
Perhaps it isn’t fair to create another spoiled only child but on the flip side is my sanity. I piously think of the environment, natural resources and all the unwanted children. But more importantly, I barely made it through Mister Baby’s first year in tact so what might happen the next time? Granted, that first year also included an international move and my mother’s prolonged, near death hospitalization among other traumas.
I would love to wake up and find another couple of delightful, potty-trained kids, a big house and garden and a fulfilling career, and a dog, maybe even some chickens. This seems possible if I have twins quickly followed by a nervous break down and emerge from the mental institution when they’re four.
Let’s face it, as older parents, if Mister Baby waits as long as we did to have kids, we don’t have a prayer of seeing any grandchildren while we’re compos mentis and cataract free. According to actuarial tables, the Pater and I will be checking out early on in Mister Baby’s life. I don’t want him to be lonely; I want him to have a family of his own. So I have devised a twofold plan combining forced marriage and teenage pregnancy. I have proposed marriage contracts to the parents of his more attractive playmates. Failing this (and unsuitable dowries), I have decided not to mention birth control. I’ll be one of those cool moms who lets Mister Baby’s girlfriends stay overnight, and in his room, no less. I hope to still be ambulatory so I can baby-sit. If I happen to be in diapers, I’ll still be an expert.
Mostly I wish I had met The Pater five years earlier and started on this journey sooner but I can’t rewrite history. An essential part of growing up is hating your parents, so the question remains: will Mister Baby grow up to hate me because he’s an only child or for some other crime?
“How about you?”
“Oh no, my other daughter is 3 and I’m done. Are you having another?” she asks expectantly.
I candidly express my reticence: my age and the difficulty of the first year in particular.
“Oh you don’t look your age,” she butters me up (I had bathed and was wearing massive sunglasses) and then pithily dishes up: “Well if you don’t, he’ll grow up and hate you.”
Hate me, why would he hate me? He gets daily showers of ‘I love you’ and doesn’t have to share with any one save the cat. He might feel pressure, but hatred, I think not.
“Are you going to have another baby?” Mieke asks me over coffee in the park.
“Are you nuts? I don’t even know where this one is,” I answer, looking around until I spot Mister Baby stealing a tricycle. “I seriously doubt I could keep track of any more.”
“But everyone says the second one is so much easier,” she says as her daughter clambers onto Mister Baby’s back to get at the bike.
“How much easier can it be? Do the math, there’d still be two!” I counter as Mister Baby drags her daughter off the tricycle by the hair, steps over her and rides away.
I tally the pros and cons of having another child as babyhood slips from Mister Baby’s body. I conclude that it would be great for him and suck for me. I’d like a house filled with life and noise and activity, but what I miss most about life before Mister Baby is reading and having an attention span longer than it takes to make toast (and that’s generous). ‘They play with each other so you can do other things,’ so the argument goes. Like what? Climb Mount Everest of a morning? What they mean is that I can clean and cook some more. And while I love my siblings now we’re older - most of the time - the thing I remember most was the constant squabbling. The ‘she’s-on-my-side’ whine from the back seat followed by the bellowing of: “Don’t make me pull over!”
Perhaps it isn’t fair to create another spoiled only child but on the flip side is my sanity. I piously think of the environment, natural resources and all the unwanted children. But more importantly, I barely made it through Mister Baby’s first year in tact so what might happen the next time? Granted, that first year also included an international move and my mother’s prolonged, near death hospitalization among other traumas.
I would love to wake up and find another couple of delightful, potty-trained kids, a big house and garden and a fulfilling career, and a dog, maybe even some chickens. This seems possible if I have twins quickly followed by a nervous break down and emerge from the mental institution when they’re four.
Let’s face it, as older parents, if Mister Baby waits as long as we did to have kids, we don’t have a prayer of seeing any grandchildren while we’re compos mentis and cataract free. According to actuarial tables, the Pater and I will be checking out early on in Mister Baby’s life. I don’t want him to be lonely; I want him to have a family of his own. So I have devised a twofold plan combining forced marriage and teenage pregnancy. I have proposed marriage contracts to the parents of his more attractive playmates. Failing this (and unsuitable dowries), I have decided not to mention birth control. I’ll be one of those cool moms who lets Mister Baby’s girlfriends stay overnight, and in his room, no less. I hope to still be ambulatory so I can baby-sit. If I happen to be in diapers, I’ll still be an expert.
Mostly I wish I had met The Pater five years earlier and started on this journey sooner but I can’t rewrite history. An essential part of growing up is hating your parents, so the question remains: will Mister Baby grow up to hate me because he’s an only child or for some other crime?
Natural Born Killers (August 2006)
Just before breaking off her engagement, a friend of mine dreamed that she was sitting between her perspective mother-in-law and her fiancé when the mother’s mouth opened like a cobra’s, and in a flash and bit the son’s head. As my teeth are about to close over my own son’s shoulder, I wake up and like Gregor Samsa waking as a cockroach, I think: “This was no dream.”
“I want to bash The Pater’s head in,” I spit. “I have nowhere to wear them anyway.”
“Don’t you think it’s helpful that we all want to as well?” Mieke asks.
“No, because I still want to kill him. And it’s not even him, it’s just because he’s there, I just want to bash somebody’s head in.”
“I once got so mad at Flavio that I threw my wedding ring in his omelette,” Helen adds.
“Did he eat the omelette?” I giggle at her.
“Have you ever threatened divorce?” asks Mieke.
“Of course,” Helen and I say in unison.
“Well, when I do it really seems to unsettle Rob,” she says.
“He probably thinks you’re serious,” I say.
“But I’ve never had a baby before,” she counters.
“You didn’t say you were going to divorce the baby,” I point out.
I have so much anger inside me, I always have but it’s definitely worse since Mister Baby was born. Or perhaps I notice it more because I don’t want my hideous temper mirrored by him. I tend to flare when I haven’t slept enough and when I have little or no time to myself, hmmm, I’m thinking that it probably is worse now. But the rage that electrifies me is terrifying.
It’s Saturday morning and The Pater was out late last night, the poor dear fell asleep on the train on the way home and missed his stop. Not my problem, though, and I start in on him like a pit-bull.
“What time did you come home last night?”
“What difference does it make, you were asleep?”
“What time?”
“I came home, when I came home.”
“What time?” By this time my voice is shrill and Mister Baby, in my arms, is looking between us, a cowed expression on his still sleepy face.
“I got home at two.”
“At two?” I explode with a stamp of my foot. “And you didn’t think to call me? No one had a cell phone? Why do I have to call you and you never even think to call me?”
And then my arm darts out and I punch him on the arm, hard. We look at each other, there’s stone in his eyes and we look at Mister Baby who’s horribly frightened and withdrawn, and I start sobbing.
“I’m going back to bed,” he says.
I shakily make a bottle for Mister Baby and take him into his room. I croon to him and drip tears into his fuzzy head until he falls asleep. I make tea and clean the kitchen. For the rest of the day we are quiet and normal and go shopping and play with Mister Baby. We even laugh but my belly rumbles with fear. A year ago, a punch from me would be laughable but since hauling Mister Baby around and some yoga, my punches pack some wallop but more importantly, I hit The Pater! I am a batterer, I am an abuser. I am shocked by my aggression and fury.
“I can’t believe I hit you. Did you see Mister Baby’s face? He hates it when we fight,” I start over a dinner of risotto with pancetta and gorgonzola that I have carefully, deliberately prepared while sipping at some red wine. I apologize and The Pater graciously excuses me, he thinks it’s a little funny, bless him. He doesn’t see that I’m an out of control sociopath that will turn her rage upon her family and wreak a litany of physical and verbal abuse. Or maybe he can’t face it.
“Bitchiness used to just be my domain,” I say.
“You sound proud of that,” he says flatly.
“I’m not proud of it, but it’s true, you never used to snap like that.”
“You’re not the only one who gets mad, why do I always have to be the nice guy,” he says. Um, because you are the nice guy? We’ve established that: I’m the bitch and you’re the nice guy and while I seem to be staying true to type, you’re unnervingly deviating from the flight path, mister.
It is the lesser of two evils if my fury is focused on The Pater instead of Mister Baby but it flares at Mister Baby as well. When he pulls my hair, when he bucks and squeals and spreads poop everywhere, when he spits out his dinner and upturns the bowl, when he’s madly prodding the unflushed bowl with the toilet brush (hey, it’s a drought, give me a break), in other words, being a deliciously mischievous little boy. The Otha Mothas pretend it doesn’t happen to them; it’s like masturbation though, everybody does it but nobody wants to admit it.
“I think it really helps to talk,” says Mieke.
“To The Pater or you guys?” I ask.
Yes, to both, to anybody, pride be damned; smothered secrets mean more smouldering rage.
“I want to bash The Pater’s head in,” I spit. “I have nowhere to wear them anyway.”
“Don’t you think it’s helpful that we all want to as well?” Mieke asks.
“No, because I still want to kill him. And it’s not even him, it’s just because he’s there, I just want to bash somebody’s head in.”
“I once got so mad at Flavio that I threw my wedding ring in his omelette,” Helen adds.
“Did he eat the omelette?” I giggle at her.
“Have you ever threatened divorce?” asks Mieke.
“Of course,” Helen and I say in unison.
“Well, when I do it really seems to unsettle Rob,” she says.
“He probably thinks you’re serious,” I say.
“But I’ve never had a baby before,” she counters.
“You didn’t say you were going to divorce the baby,” I point out.
I have so much anger inside me, I always have but it’s definitely worse since Mister Baby was born. Or perhaps I notice it more because I don’t want my hideous temper mirrored by him. I tend to flare when I haven’t slept enough and when I have little or no time to myself, hmmm, I’m thinking that it probably is worse now. But the rage that electrifies me is terrifying.
It’s Saturday morning and The Pater was out late last night, the poor dear fell asleep on the train on the way home and missed his stop. Not my problem, though, and I start in on him like a pit-bull.
“What time did you come home last night?”
“What difference does it make, you were asleep?”
“What time?”
“I came home, when I came home.”
“What time?” By this time my voice is shrill and Mister Baby, in my arms, is looking between us, a cowed expression on his still sleepy face.
“I got home at two.”
“At two?” I explode with a stamp of my foot. “And you didn’t think to call me? No one had a cell phone? Why do I have to call you and you never even think to call me?”
And then my arm darts out and I punch him on the arm, hard. We look at each other, there’s stone in his eyes and we look at Mister Baby who’s horribly frightened and withdrawn, and I start sobbing.
“I’m going back to bed,” he says.
I shakily make a bottle for Mister Baby and take him into his room. I croon to him and drip tears into his fuzzy head until he falls asleep. I make tea and clean the kitchen. For the rest of the day we are quiet and normal and go shopping and play with Mister Baby. We even laugh but my belly rumbles with fear. A year ago, a punch from me would be laughable but since hauling Mister Baby around and some yoga, my punches pack some wallop but more importantly, I hit The Pater! I am a batterer, I am an abuser. I am shocked by my aggression and fury.
“I can’t believe I hit you. Did you see Mister Baby’s face? He hates it when we fight,” I start over a dinner of risotto with pancetta and gorgonzola that I have carefully, deliberately prepared while sipping at some red wine. I apologize and The Pater graciously excuses me, he thinks it’s a little funny, bless him. He doesn’t see that I’m an out of control sociopath that will turn her rage upon her family and wreak a litany of physical and verbal abuse. Or maybe he can’t face it.
“Bitchiness used to just be my domain,” I say.
“You sound proud of that,” he says flatly.
“I’m not proud of it, but it’s true, you never used to snap like that.”
“You’re not the only one who gets mad, why do I always have to be the nice guy,” he says. Um, because you are the nice guy? We’ve established that: I’m the bitch and you’re the nice guy and while I seem to be staying true to type, you’re unnervingly deviating from the flight path, mister.
It is the lesser of two evils if my fury is focused on The Pater instead of Mister Baby but it flares at Mister Baby as well. When he pulls my hair, when he bucks and squeals and spreads poop everywhere, when he spits out his dinner and upturns the bowl, when he’s madly prodding the unflushed bowl with the toilet brush (hey, it’s a drought, give me a break), in other words, being a deliciously mischievous little boy. The Otha Mothas pretend it doesn’t happen to them; it’s like masturbation though, everybody does it but nobody wants to admit it.
“I think it really helps to talk,” says Mieke.
“To The Pater or you guys?” I ask.
Yes, to both, to anybody, pride be damned; smothered secrets mean more smouldering rage.
Better Living Through Larceny (July 2006)
or Home Economics
I am sitting in the sunshine with my book and my coffee on Mister Baby’s last day of playgroup; his first day of summer freedom, my last. A well-dressed - other than the turquoise crocs – fifty-ish woman is slowly circling the benches and surreptitiously foraging among the litter. She reminds me of my mother collecting cans in the park next to our house. The box for deposit bottles was by the front door. “Who’s drinking malt liquor?” I asked incredulously one day. “The guys in the park,” she answered. That day I laughed. The day when they picked me up at Vassar and she was collecting beer cans, I crouched in the back of the station wagon keening with embarrassment. “She’s New England thrifty,” my dad had said.
It’s a terrible moment when you realize you’ve turned into your mother, and the most gut wrenching, mortifying bits of your mother to boot. But being dependent on only the Pater’s income has ignited a thriftiness all my own. We’re not poor but I feel, like my mother before me, that my financial contribution to the household is to economize. So, in order to cut fiscal corners I frequent the 2-for-1 aisle, for example. I also may have put wine in the bottom of Dexter’s stroller and “forgotten” to pay for it. This may have happened more than once. And, as in many criminal enterprises, success may have bred audacity and the quality and price of the wine may have increased over time. The wine may even have been joined by the fancy olive oil and the aged balsamic vinegar. And then I may have been busted.
“Did you pay for the wine, ma’am?” the security guard asks, pulling Mister Baby and me aside at the exit. I have the impression that he knows the answer to this question.
“Oh, my goodness, I must have forgotten,” I attempt to exclaim in surprise. He is unmoved and my stomach turns inside out and I feel see-through; I had been monitored. “Can I just pay for it now, I’m really sorry, I forgot, can I just pay for it, please” I beg and swallow.
He allows enough time for the image of me in handcuffs in front of Mister Baby to sink in before he intones, “If you ‘forget’ again, ma’am, we’ll have to ban you from the store.”
“Oh my goodness, baby, Mommy forgot to pay,” I whinny. Although my hand is shaking I do manage to hand over my Nectar card.
I am so deeply ashamed at getting caught – let’s be honest – that I don’t think I can tell the Pater. However, the full-price Gigondas goes very nicely with the paprika chicken and leeks served over red Camargue rice and I loosen up and admit to being busted and ‘ma’amed,’ all in one day.
The Pater is both amused and affronted. “I’m going to start calling you Winona,” he jokes, but his pride is bruised. “It’s not like we can’t afford wine,” he says.
“Well, don’t get used to this one,” I say.
We still have the joint checking and savings accounts in the States as well as joint checking and savings here. I also kept my checking account in the States as well as what I call my plastic surgery fund. This is the only way I can maintain a fiscal identity, and the idea of independence, for myself. This is my version of the thousands of dollars in twenties we found in my grandmother’s drawers after she died. It was left over from shopping money that Papa would give her each week. So not only have I turned into my mother, but I’ve also channeled my grandmother. I’m Old England thrifty.
The woman in crocs toes at the littered cigarette packs to make sure they’re empty and finding nothing, leaves the green. A man sits down next to me. I have half an hour, half a chapter of my book and half my coffee left when he starts stroking himself with his eyes on my legs.
“Hey” I wheel on him, “this is the last day I get to sit in the park on my own, go somewhere else to do that.”
It’s going to be a hot, dry summer.
I am sitting in the sunshine with my book and my coffee on Mister Baby’s last day of playgroup; his first day of summer freedom, my last. A well-dressed - other than the turquoise crocs – fifty-ish woman is slowly circling the benches and surreptitiously foraging among the litter. She reminds me of my mother collecting cans in the park next to our house. The box for deposit bottles was by the front door. “Who’s drinking malt liquor?” I asked incredulously one day. “The guys in the park,” she answered. That day I laughed. The day when they picked me up at Vassar and she was collecting beer cans, I crouched in the back of the station wagon keening with embarrassment. “She’s New England thrifty,” my dad had said.
It’s a terrible moment when you realize you’ve turned into your mother, and the most gut wrenching, mortifying bits of your mother to boot. But being dependent on only the Pater’s income has ignited a thriftiness all my own. We’re not poor but I feel, like my mother before me, that my financial contribution to the household is to economize. So, in order to cut fiscal corners I frequent the 2-for-1 aisle, for example. I also may have put wine in the bottom of Dexter’s stroller and “forgotten” to pay for it. This may have happened more than once. And, as in many criminal enterprises, success may have bred audacity and the quality and price of the wine may have increased over time. The wine may even have been joined by the fancy olive oil and the aged balsamic vinegar. And then I may have been busted.
“Did you pay for the wine, ma’am?” the security guard asks, pulling Mister Baby and me aside at the exit. I have the impression that he knows the answer to this question.
“Oh, my goodness, I must have forgotten,” I attempt to exclaim in surprise. He is unmoved and my stomach turns inside out and I feel see-through; I had been monitored. “Can I just pay for it now, I’m really sorry, I forgot, can I just pay for it, please” I beg and swallow.
He allows enough time for the image of me in handcuffs in front of Mister Baby to sink in before he intones, “If you ‘forget’ again, ma’am, we’ll have to ban you from the store.”
“Oh my goodness, baby, Mommy forgot to pay,” I whinny. Although my hand is shaking I do manage to hand over my Nectar card.
I am so deeply ashamed at getting caught – let’s be honest – that I don’t think I can tell the Pater. However, the full-price Gigondas goes very nicely with the paprika chicken and leeks served over red Camargue rice and I loosen up and admit to being busted and ‘ma’amed,’ all in one day.
The Pater is both amused and affronted. “I’m going to start calling you Winona,” he jokes, but his pride is bruised. “It’s not like we can’t afford wine,” he says.
“Well, don’t get used to this one,” I say.
We still have the joint checking and savings accounts in the States as well as joint checking and savings here. I also kept my checking account in the States as well as what I call my plastic surgery fund. This is the only way I can maintain a fiscal identity, and the idea of independence, for myself. This is my version of the thousands of dollars in twenties we found in my grandmother’s drawers after she died. It was left over from shopping money that Papa would give her each week. So not only have I turned into my mother, but I’ve also channeled my grandmother. I’m Old England thrifty.
The woman in crocs toes at the littered cigarette packs to make sure they’re empty and finding nothing, leaves the green. A man sits down next to me. I have half an hour, half a chapter of my book and half my coffee left when he starts stroking himself with his eyes on my legs.
“Hey” I wheel on him, “this is the last day I get to sit in the park on my own, go somewhere else to do that.”
It’s going to be a hot, dry summer.
Farewell to All That (May 2005)
“Uh, this is Dad. Your mother…your mother had a bad thing. An aneurism burst. She’s in surgery now; it’s going to be eight hours. I’ll call you when it’s over. This is a serious thing.”
Everything stops inside me but Mister Baby doesn’t stop. He’s still strapped to my chest, squirming to be changed and fed. I call The Pater to please come home. I call my siblings. I call my uncle but he doesn’t have any fresher news. There’s nothing more to know until my father calls again. There’s nothing more to do but hold my breath.
Also languishing on the answering machine is her annual tuneless recorder rendering of Happy Birthday which I save all year, every year. Just two weeks ago we enjoyed a wonderful visit with them and I had been thinking, however unrealistically, that I can’t imagine my life without my mother. While we were there she gave me her mother’s jewelry; we bent over each piece, remembering when Nana wore it. She kept back one necklace, “I don’t know why, but I’m going to hang on to this for now,” she said as she held it up, making it sway like a hypnotist. She also gave me two travel clocks, my Yiddish workbooks, my elementary school report cards, some essays from high school, an ice bucket in the shape of an owl and a spaghetti spoon.
Fear prickles along my skin. I hold her in my belly, where Mister Baby used to be. If I cradle him with the utmost tenderness, it is her caressed; if he sleeps easily, it is her sleeping; if I can soothe him, it is her comforted. If I cut this tomato in perfect sixths, this garlic razor thin, it will keep her whole.
The phone calls ping pong up and down the eastern seaboard.
“She made it through surgery but they’re talking about collateral damage.” His voice is stretched and scared and I can see him with his palm to his upturned forehead, eyes squinting.
“What do you mean collateral damage?” I ask.
“Brain damage.”
She is her brain and I wish I could hold it, bathe it, lick it clean.
“I think you should come down,” my father tells me.
“She’s two dimensional, flat, like she was run over by a truck,” my father tells us, smacking his hands together, his eyes screwed tight and his mouth gaping open like a bass on ice to demonstrate what to expect at the hospital. He tells us how she just bent down to pick up a carton of milk that had fallen out of the fridge, how she had worked so long the evening before in the garden tending Gerte’s god-damned heirloom tomatoes. He says if he hadn’t been home, she probably would have just gone and lay down. The housekeeper was here, he says, and she kept vacuuming even after the ambulance arrived. How the ambulance got there so quickly and how he followed in his car. He tells us that she knows what happened, she was conscious when he told the doctor that her mother died this way. My uncle, her only sibling, looks bilious.
She is tubes and wounds and pain. She comes to consciousness like a fish swimming up for air. Her liver-flecked, work worn hands do her talking in familiar gestures, performing solo where they were once members of an ensemble. Her shrugs, nods and eyebrows act in concert to tell us about her pain and discomfort, her fear and questions. My brother plays his violin while I comb her hair and sing her favorite song from the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, the one I sing to Mister Baby. There is dried blood in her hair at the base of her neck. I am her simian daughter, picking nits from her big grey head.
When my father tells her he has bought a cell phone, her eyes go wide with cartoon shock and mock horror. I don’t know if she’s reacting to the idea of a cell phone or the fact that the situation requires one.
My sister and I flit back and forth between Mister Baby and my mother. We have dinner as a family, my uncle, brother, father, sister, Mister Baby and I all at the Chinese buffet. We have Sunday dinner at the dining hall with Gerte as they do each Sunday. I do the laundry. I throw away the threadbare t-shirt she was wearing, torn down the front to get at her chest.
“Did you tell Paddington?” I ask, looking at the 25 year old, stuffed bear at the foot of their bed.
“He was here,” my father says, “he saw the whole thing.”
I bring her a clipboard and pen when Gerte and I visit. She looks at Gerte and writes: How are you? She underlines the ‘you.’ Then she writes ‘pain,’ and we get the nurse. She will remember none of this.
Everything stops inside me but Mister Baby doesn’t stop. He’s still strapped to my chest, squirming to be changed and fed. I call The Pater to please come home. I call my siblings. I call my uncle but he doesn’t have any fresher news. There’s nothing more to know until my father calls again. There’s nothing more to do but hold my breath.
Also languishing on the answering machine is her annual tuneless recorder rendering of Happy Birthday which I save all year, every year. Just two weeks ago we enjoyed a wonderful visit with them and I had been thinking, however unrealistically, that I can’t imagine my life without my mother. While we were there she gave me her mother’s jewelry; we bent over each piece, remembering when Nana wore it. She kept back one necklace, “I don’t know why, but I’m going to hang on to this for now,” she said as she held it up, making it sway like a hypnotist. She also gave me two travel clocks, my Yiddish workbooks, my elementary school report cards, some essays from high school, an ice bucket in the shape of an owl and a spaghetti spoon.
Fear prickles along my skin. I hold her in my belly, where Mister Baby used to be. If I cradle him with the utmost tenderness, it is her caressed; if he sleeps easily, it is her sleeping; if I can soothe him, it is her comforted. If I cut this tomato in perfect sixths, this garlic razor thin, it will keep her whole.
The phone calls ping pong up and down the eastern seaboard.
“She made it through surgery but they’re talking about collateral damage.” His voice is stretched and scared and I can see him with his palm to his upturned forehead, eyes squinting.
“What do you mean collateral damage?” I ask.
“Brain damage.”
She is her brain and I wish I could hold it, bathe it, lick it clean.
“I think you should come down,” my father tells me.
“She’s two dimensional, flat, like she was run over by a truck,” my father tells us, smacking his hands together, his eyes screwed tight and his mouth gaping open like a bass on ice to demonstrate what to expect at the hospital. He tells us how she just bent down to pick up a carton of milk that had fallen out of the fridge, how she had worked so long the evening before in the garden tending Gerte’s god-damned heirloom tomatoes. He says if he hadn’t been home, she probably would have just gone and lay down. The housekeeper was here, he says, and she kept vacuuming even after the ambulance arrived. How the ambulance got there so quickly and how he followed in his car. He tells us that she knows what happened, she was conscious when he told the doctor that her mother died this way. My uncle, her only sibling, looks bilious.
She is tubes and wounds and pain. She comes to consciousness like a fish swimming up for air. Her liver-flecked, work worn hands do her talking in familiar gestures, performing solo where they were once members of an ensemble. Her shrugs, nods and eyebrows act in concert to tell us about her pain and discomfort, her fear and questions. My brother plays his violin while I comb her hair and sing her favorite song from the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, the one I sing to Mister Baby. There is dried blood in her hair at the base of her neck. I am her simian daughter, picking nits from her big grey head.
When my father tells her he has bought a cell phone, her eyes go wide with cartoon shock and mock horror. I don’t know if she’s reacting to the idea of a cell phone or the fact that the situation requires one.
My sister and I flit back and forth between Mister Baby and my mother. We have dinner as a family, my uncle, brother, father, sister, Mister Baby and I all at the Chinese buffet. We have Sunday dinner at the dining hall with Gerte as they do each Sunday. I do the laundry. I throw away the threadbare t-shirt she was wearing, torn down the front to get at her chest.
“Did you tell Paddington?” I ask, looking at the 25 year old, stuffed bear at the foot of their bed.
“He was here,” my father says, “he saw the whole thing.”
I bring her a clipboard and pen when Gerte and I visit. She looks at Gerte and writes: How are you? She underlines the ‘you.’ Then she writes ‘pain,’ and we get the nurse. She will remember none of this.
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