Tragedy of the American Mother

Ok, y’all, bear with me as I launch into what I hope is as close to a rant as I get on what is really important to me…

At dinner last night we were in a restaurant crowded with families and so we ended up in a back banquet room where another family was already eating, and so we sat, relatively quiet trying not to listen to them, a dilemma of not wanting to invade their privacy, but not wanting to talk because we realized how little privacy there was, and their conversation was… invasive. Except it wasn’t even a conversation, it was a mother holding forth to a captive audience. I know the ages of the kids in the family because the buffet charged by the age of the guest, so there was a 10 year old son, an 11 year old daughter, and another older son who wouldn’t qualify for a kid’s meal. It’s weird overharing the conversation, and since you have no choice in the matter, just plain eavesdropping, and getting, with terrible clarity, from this single conversation, empathy for every point of view in the family. In the car afterwards, my husband expressed a real aversion to this woman, because she was so controlling. She was making some point to her daughter about what she should and shouldn’t eat, dutifully passing on the message women give their daughters about their bodies and food, and yet, I was sitting there and couldn’t help observing this girl was skinny and her younger brother had the physique of those kids you see in video game stores…

What was worse, was when the 10 year old went to the hall right outside this room, leading to the lavatories, and started a video game on one of the arcade machines parked there, only she dragged him back into the room and looks over at our table, to tell my kids there’s a ‘free’ game out there, that they should hurry and go play it. The she lays into him about the ‘little kids’ at the other table getting to play his game he spent his money on and how tomorrow, when he’s at Disneyland, he’s going to be drinking water when everyone else is drinking soda because he spent his money on a video game. Between these two incidents she held forth on nutrition and energy in food in what I am guessing came from the Omnivore’s Dilemma, the way she kept citing the book she was reading, but I don’t think I heard her husband’s voice at all. I thought the girl was sweet, finding me to hand me a small toy my youngest had dropped, and I got the feeling she was embarrassed by her mother.

The thing is, I am not unsympathetic to this woman. I know how polarizing it gets, feeling like you have sole responsibility for nutritional consciousness, fiscal lessons, long-term thinking. I know what it is to try whatever tactics you can to persuade your offspring to do what you need them to — that she wouldn’t have heard the belittling, controlling message that was being served with it. She had this sense of humor with a sharp blade buried in it, like the Halloween apple of urban legend, but this probably was more comfortable than outright authority. Sometimes I have these Carol Gilligan moments of believing I have been socialized to ask for things only indirectly, to always bury the lead under frills and ruffles of nicety and others-pleasing pathology, and it is a huge impediment to the sort of communication that is essential to marriage.

The silent dad reminds me of the formula in the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories Soren can’t get enough of right now: sweet child displays a bewildering new awful behavior, mother turns to father frantic with worry, he raises a sharp eyebrow and retreats with his pipe behind a newspaper, mother helplessy calls all her friends who declaim the behavior, their own child is SO well-behaved! But Mrs. Blank did have that problem with little Timmy, and she called Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. That is definitely what you should do, call Mrs. Piggle Wiggle!

The polarization of parenting roles depresses me, and I get all sensitive and it seems to be close to universal, the story of husbands as big children that practically need raising themselves — and if this story creeps into your marriage/relationship it is used to excuse/absolve with a shrug or a sigh, “Men!” followed by increasing shrewishness under the growing weight of being the worrier, the long-term thinker, the responsible ‘Angel in the House’ (the Victioran representation of women as the moral heart of the home who must be protected from the external world and its pressures and realities). And I don’t know of a magic cure for it.

I have as much sympathy for the father, who gets told over and over again that the way he is pareting is wrong, until he abdicates. There is a terrible bind of neither having the model of previous generations of fathers being more than breadwinners and disciplinarians, stoics with deeply buried inner lives, nor of getting the intensive early time as primary caregiver, sink or swim, when you have to learn for yourself by trial and error what works and what doesn’t.

As the mom, with what feels like a God-given responsibility to protect and guide my kids, it is one of the most difficult things in the world to stand back and allow the other relationships in their lives to happen without interfering, whether it’s the musci teacher on a grouchy day, or the father who wants to splurge on candy at the movies, when I have histories and reasons that this is a Bad Idea. (It occurs to me I should be grateful not to have anyone watching over my shoulder on the bad days when I make my multitude of mistakes too). Yet, again, and again, I must confront that this relinquishing of control, trusting my raising of them is what I must do. I have already had a chance to drill in the messages I want them to have: that they are fine people, that life is an act of balancing discipline and enjoyment of pleasures, that stuff is not what makes you happy, that respect, courtesy, and consideration are all very important in interacting with each other and the world.

Sometimes, the compromises, the video games they’re allowed to play, the delight in boyish things I just don’t GET, projectiles and sticks, shiny warrior avatars — feels unbearable, like an abdication of my pacifistic values and maternal responsibility, especially because I know sometimes the compromise is about the learning experience they’ll get and the balance they need between discipline and fun, and sometimes it’s about my being exhausted and wanting time in my own head and it’s easier.

I have spasms of envy of people bringing up theeir kids without television, or the idealistic new parents who resist any toys made of plastic, or my cousin’s wife, whose baby shower was all children’s books. But maybe in the end I do believe that the little indulgences haven’t created children who are hopelessly spoiled, but children with some information to make better decisions: that the toy they pined for for three months turned out to be made of rather flimsy plastic and fell apart after only a couple weeks, that it offered less joy than a family bike ride or the feeling of being service.

I hope to never see the look of terror in my families eyes as I lecture them as a captive audience in some restaurant (that’s why I have a blog!) and I think part of the key to not hitting that point is to not simplify the polarizing roles my husband and I get into, but to keep reminding myself of how we’re complementary, we balance each other. I have the discipline to get my kids practicing their stringed instruments (nearly) every day, he has translated his strengths in technology and communication into a career he enjoys that supports me staying at home with my kids. I can remember to be grateful for that.