Heaven Help Me!

I woke up to a morning of choas. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, being that I have six children, a dog, a cat, (and a rat or two about to join the family soon). But for whatever reason, today I did not feel up to dealing with it. Hubby and I stayed up late last night for “date night”, and needed much deserved sleeping in time. My kids have been intelligently arguing and *stinging* each other for the past couple weeks since school has been officially ”over” in our house. (It is frustrating to watch just how mean they can be to each other – even though they are brother & sisters! As my father-in-law put it to my husband and his brothers when they were growing up, “You have to fight the whole world – why fight each other!” ) My eight year old daughter unlocked my bedroom door with a key this morning proclaiming that my three-year old just had an “accident” and could I please come and clean it up. As I mobilized my troops kids to action in cleaning up the spill (and helping their sister get new clothes), I tripped over the dog who was spinning in circles around me wanting to be fed and let out. Then I returned to my bedroom, because our newborn woke up screaming and needing to be fed, and my husband expressing that he missed me and wanted more time with me.

So, waking up with demands from all sides prompted me to recall a familiar scene from a horror flick – one in which a woman is running away from ghostly arms coming at her from all sides. Once in a while, it comes at me, like a movie that is on continuous repeat. In this panic, I just felt like being a teenager running away from home (I did this once, but only made it to the end of my driveway); to escape my responsibilities, and fly to a deserted island where the only noise would be the lapping of the pristine blue ocean waves, and the only conversation would be a waiter who would bring me interesting, gourmet tapas and perfectly prepared pina coladas, as I dreamed of fitting into my former size 8 swimsuit, beached in the glowing sun on a comfy, white sand mattress.

Finally, with the assistance of my husband, I made myself an iced cafe mocha, went to my room, closed the door, pulled out my computer and typed in a google search the words “overwhelmed mother”. What this search yielded was a timely surprise:  an article on being an overwhelmed mom written by an overwhelmed mom.

I won’t say exactly what the article says, but I felt much better (and grateful for the choas I’ve been given) after reading it.

It was a good reminder that what I need is to make sure I take time out once in a while. My husband constantly offers such time to me, but something inside wants to stay home enmeshed in my responsibilities. What is it? Pride? That I can do it all?

A mother of a large family is called to a life of service. As I tell my kids sometimes, when I need to “recharge my batteries”, “Okay, guys, my tank is almost on empty. Time for me to take some time to fill it up and for you to watch a movie!”

Fifteen minutes later after ‘filling up my tank’, I am a happy woman again.

Which is a much cheaper, much more  accessible solution than a flight to Kauai!

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Husband and I have always been interested in what makes a successful marriage “tick”. When we were newly engaged, we played out different scenarios in our minds about who would stay home and who would go to work. We mutually hyphenated our names when we got married. We knew the flexibility of modern marriage did not confine us to certain roles.

In practice, it turned out I was not destined for a career outside the home, as I immediately embraced staying home when our firstborn son was born. I was “into” cooking and cleaning and caring for children and found great fulfillment in it. I loved reading the children stories for hours on end, playing with blocks and making birthday cakes. Changing diapers wasn’t all that bad, as long as I got to do these other things, too.

Throughout the years, marriage and the idea of a “good wife” has been “reinvented” multiple times. This is the focus of an article written by Lisa Belkin in the March 22, 2010 edition of the New York Times, entitled, “The Marrying Kind”.

All this redefinition has become possible as women have been given more choices. While some of it has been helpful, as a fairly traditional woman who stays home with my children, and tries to make a home for my husband, I have found some of it a maze to navigate. My impression of what makes “a good wife” has been subject to society’s influence over time, particularly when I was young and forming these ideals. I believe I had the “perfect mother” – she tended to my two brothers and my needs with extraordinary devotion and care, in a way I’m quite afraid to admit that I am unable to do myself today. Dinner with all food groups represented every night at 6:30pm, Sunday brunch without fail, meticulous attention to detail when we were sick. Although I have twice as many children as her, and my life choices have dictated that I won’t be able to pull off motherhood with as much careful concern as she did, a part of me still wishes I could. At the same time, I am grateful that the standards aren’t so perfectionistically high that this type of care come solely from me (my husband is just as active in it).

However, the “osmosis” education that my peers and I received to become a H.I.T. (Homemaker in Training) was conflicting at best. It tooted the benefits & supposed freedom of being a ‘supermom’, who could “bring home the bacon AND fry it up in the pan”, just like the Enjoli perfume commercial said. In other words, we were told we could be a mom just like my mom and a career embracing feminist, as well. In high school, we had a home economics class (one of the most popular classes!) in which we all donned aprons and baked apple pies during school hours. When that class ended, we were whisked off to the next class, “Business Economics” which encouraged us to have skills for a successful career outside the home. Confusing? I’ll say. And most of us still don’t know how to make homemade gravy from scratch.

In the aforementioned article, Ms. Belkin highlights the latest “twist” in the redefinition of marriage and what it means to be a good wife: the fastest growing subset of cohabitating couples today are over the age of 50. These women, having been previously married and lived out the “ideal Mrs.” – having wanted nothing more from life than to don the apron and be married -now scoff at it. These women, who were enmeshed in that rejection of the “old ways”;  ”housewives” protesting they were not married to their houses, began calling themselves the more respectable title of  ”working moms” instead. Gradually, we have realized since then that “Supermom”, due to its unattainability, is more comic than reality. Seeing the old guideposts gone, what impetus is there to follow?

Women today are not what they were and as a result we are probably much more relaxed and reasonable. It is perfectly fine to enlist the help of a device to do housework, instead of scrubbing each square of bathroom tile with a toothbrush like grandma did. With the constant redefining of our roles, it will be interesting to see the scenario play out.

On that note, I am off to eat a wonderful meal, home-cooked by my husband, who is a five star *Mr. Mom*, doing all the cleaning and homekeeping while I recover from birth. In the “old days”, it might be unthinkable that Mom or Mom-in-law would not be at my side for two weeks, so hubby could get back to work since he was clueless when it came to running a home. However, this is not the case for us, nor for many women today. Due to this redefinition of roles for women, our mothers, *too*, have the freedom they earned themselves thirty years ago.

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As I sit here cradling my less than 72 hour newborn son, I am reminded of the previous births of my children – (and the one birth that I hoped would happen, but didn’t). Thomas is as perfect as it gets – he’s blessed with good health, a nice ruddy glowing Sicilian skin tone like his siblings, a peaceful disposition (he fusses, but he hasn’t cried loudly yet!), great baby noises and all the rest.

I couldn’t imagine myself in this position almost exactly one year ago. One of the most dismal days of my life was when my obstetrician told me my baby had died spontaneously in my womb sometime in the past week before seeing her. So many plaguing questions filled my mind: What did I do wrong? Had I done too much (fill in the blank), etc., etc.  If I had gotten there a day earlier, would she have been able to save him? As she broke the news to me that his heartbeat had stopped, I soaked the hospital gown and ultrasound table with my tears. I went through weeks, no months, of thinking I would never have the privilege of conceiving again. Seeing a happy pregnant woman was a harsh sting.

After I checked in at the hospital’s registration, someone took me up to labor & delivery. This person assumed I must be excited about being in labor that day, to which I responded, “Actually, I’m just plain relieved”.

Relieved that I could finally get my hopes up that this was happening! That my baby was past the point of viability! That now all we had to do was get him out safely and we’d be home free!

There is a reason and a time for everything. I am grateful to have had the privilege to bear another child. Perhaps I would not be as much so if I hadn’t experienced the fragility of life before. It is not easy to conceive a child, carry a pregnancy all nine months to term, and give birth to a healthy baby, as a simple Google search with the search terms “infertility crisis’” illustrates. We speak as if it is so easy to do so, but the truth is it just isn’t.

If you are one of those who it isn’t easy for, my thoughts & ardent prayers are with you. May all that is good be yours in His Majesty’s good time.

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The weirdest part  about being pregnant is the delirium that can accompany it. This is one of the few things I argue with God about – that is – I tell him this aspect of pregnancy is a very, very bad idea.

Moms don’t talk about this much, but I have experienced this with all my pregnancies. (If you know what I mean, please leave a comment!) I describe it as “Mother Bear Syndrome”, with hormones thrown in. My experience tells me it is worst in the third trimester, when the mother’s body is “nesting” and planning for life after birth. There is much to secure, or keep secure. Primarily, it’s basic needs, such as food, shelter, and the means to get & keep them. It can also encompass the need for support, companionship and help after baby is born. When these needs are threatened, it can cause a visceral reaction in the mother as she feels the need to fight for her own and her “cub’s” survival and ultimate well-being.

If you’ve ever seen a mother bear protecting her babies from attack, you’ll know it’s not pretty…Intruders are not welcome and food is treated as though there is some impending famine.

Humans can become very animalistic under certain circumstances. My typical “c’est la vie” attitude toward life disappears in T-10 weeks before birth.

So, my apologies to all who have been unfortunate enough to have crossed my path in the past couple weeks and witnessed first-hand that I have morphed into some oddity that I usually am not.

I’ll be much nicer after birth. I promise.

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What’s this I wake up to? I may have woke up more overwhelmed than usual with the new baby kicking inside me reminding me that he’ll be arriving soon; I am not sure. But, within minutes my mind was racing with an unending list of things to do. Which resulted in tears. Not a fun way to wake up.  All this resulted in me turning to my husband and asking for my “emergency remedy”:  dark chocolate and a large glass of milk. After a little conversation with him, I realized something: I am lacking true joy. With all that I have, I can’t believe I feel sad. It is predictable that at the end of all my pregnancies, I tend to get down. I struggled through the morning, got my kids to their catechism classes at church on time, made it to a beautiful Mass, and smiled at friends. My spirits lifted after Mass when I had completed the most important tasks of the day.

Although I can now look back on the day with joy, there is a thought pervading my mind. Why has God blessed a woman like me with depressive tendencies with many children and all that I have? Why can’t some of those women who are immaculate housekeepers and gourmet cooks, chirpy and chipper in every way, albeit infertile, get the chance to do as I am doing? The answer came to me as we prayed the rosary on the way to church, “I am not the mother I want to be, but I am the mother God wants me to be”.

The remedy for this certain darkness? As St. John of the Cross says, “What is needed is hope”.

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I check my email after writing this to find a link sent by a dear friend entitled “A Mother’s Liturgy of the Hours” written by Danielle Bean. Hmmm…my life perfectly explained. Exactly what I HOPED to hear!

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I want to comment on Sandra Tsing Loh’s most recent article in the December 2009 edition of The Atlantic magazine, entitled “On Being  a Bad Mother – True Confessions”  (a follow-up to Ms. Loh’s article on the agony of her divorce in the July/August 2009 issue of The Atlantic, entitled “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” which caused a near nationwide stir). In the latter, Ms. Loh relates from experience with her 20 year long marriage, that she believes she has failed as a wife and mother. But her reason for saying so is as follows:

“in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance. Sobered by this failure as a mother—which is to say, my failure as a wife—I’ve since begun a journey of reading, thinking, and listening to what’s going on in other 21st-century American families. And along the way, I’ve begun to wonder, what with all the abject and swallowed misery: Why do we still insist on marriage?”

Ms. Loh tells her story with sadness and regret.  It seems what she is saying is that if she weren’t so exhausted and overworked, as many of her literary & speaking counterparts were as she came to this conclusion, that she might still want to be married. She is not a failure; she is exhausted. But this, too, shall pass. If she were offered a different viewpoint, would she have chosen marriage instead of divorce? As I wrote in a previous post, I don’t believe anyone goes into marriage hoping for it to end. Such a thought would be lunacy. The question up for consideration is what makes or breaks a marriage? Is the decision to ‘call the whole thing off’ in part based on whether or not a woman is a “good mom” or a “good wife”?

In the article, Ms. Loh relates a confessional dinner meeting with two friends, both of whom state their disappointment with marriage also. One of the main reasons they cite is summed up in this statement:  ”To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule “date night,” only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored—it’s a bum deal. And then our women’s magazines exhort us to rekindle the romance. You rarely see men’s magazines exhorting men (to enkindle the romance).”

So, too much of women doing everything, and men doing nothing. Hasn’t this been what feminism has sought to change for years? This inequality? Has making men and women more equal in the home not been entirely successful? What makes it work and what doesn’t?

If I were a participant at the aforementioned dinner meeting, I agree hearing this would really stink. Especially since the woman married to the “kitchen bitch” seemed, from the outside, to be in an ideal situation:  The husband was reliably there to take the kitchen work off his wife’s hands. He was an active father participating heavily in the children’s lives. The problem was that he perceived her as “sloppy and inattentive”.  She made mistakes that he never would have – missing the window for booking a flight on Expedia and forgetting to deglaze the saucepan of all things. She could see herself as nothing more than “a failed mother,  depressed and chronically overworked at her $120,000-a-year job (which she must cling to for the benefits because husband freelances). At night, horny and sleepless, she paces the exquisite kitchen (her husband has created), gobbling mini Dove bars.”

These spouses are irritated, even angry, for each other’s personality quirks. They are also uptight and fragile, for what else do you get when overworked and stressed? And they have not shared true intimacy in years. How unfulfilling and sad.

Important to note is that even in the best of marriage, there are areas of difficulty. There are things to work out, and to keep working out for some 20 years or more. Although I realize it can be miserable, I realize that there may be no benefit to the spouse who “keeps trying”, I realize it must seem senseless and like there must be someone else out there, I believe that Ms. Loh and others have it within them to stand the test of time – until life is less demanding of them. Until the necessities of the children have moved to the background. Until everything they’re working so hard for is paid off and done. It takes that amount of time. I have seen marriages get much better after these things are through. But one who does not stay with it will never know the other side. Spouses need to hold hands through the chaos and practice 365 intimacy, like it or not. It is a choice.

Am I actually encouraging bored-to-tears, frustrated married couples to stay married? Yes. Because there really is no guarantee that the grass is greener on the other side.

(*Just an end note, which I hope is obvious…an abusive situation is serious, and I would first stress safety of all family members.)

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