Mamazine, Mamahood

Posted on | March 15, 2006 22 Comments | e-mail | print

A brief aside, and then I’ll begin: Where are all the 20-something moms? Some of my best friends are 30+, I’m not knockin’ it. But at 26, I feel like the only person in the whole world who had a child before she hit the three-oh.

OK, now we can start. Y’all read Mamazine, right? I know I’ve plugged it here before but another time never hurts. Well, in addition to recognizing the awesomeness of 60bugs, Amy’s dug up a bevy of thought-provoking links.

After nosing around, these two quotes really resonated with me and with what I’ve been feeling for the last 14 months, since I’ve become a mother.

Parents on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Salon.com, 2003:

I used to be a fairly easygoing person, but becoming a mother threw me into a state of low-grade but chronic anxiety. I fretted over my two sons’ refusal to eat vegetables, their sibling battles, their taste for violent cartoons. Problems seemed to be evidence not that my children were normal flawed human beings but that I was a bad mom for not fixing them. I was frazzled when they misbehaved but remorseful when I yelled. If I let the boys play in front of the TV set while I grabbed half an hour of peace — OK, God help me, an hour — with a cup of tea and a magazine, I couldn’t really relax. I feared I was dooming them to lives of, well, I wasn’t sure exactly what, but I worried about it anyway.

A truce in the Mommy Wars:

Everybody is a unique kind of mom, but there’s no message out there, anywhere in American society, that you are a good mom.

Every last thing I do, from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, hovers in the back of my mind, waiting to be judged.

Should I not have fed Owen Breyer’s brand yogurt? What if it has too much sugar in it? Should I not let him watch that stupid Hi-5 DVD when I shower in the morning, or when he asks for it at night? Should I not write on the internet that I think his Hi-5 DVD is stupid, because he might read it in 10 years and feel hurt? Should I be feeding him organic foods and have I really, truly, punished myself enough for not breastfeeding him longer? Should I have yelled yesterday when that final “nnnuuuuuhhhhhh!” drove me over the edge as I was trying to get us both ready to go to work/day care? Should I have packed him something different to eat? Is he gaining enough weight? Is he going to turn autistic because I let him play by himself? Is he going to grow up to be weak and dependent because I carry him around all the time? Is he going to by stymied and atrophied because the only vegetable he’ll eat is canned green beans?

I know it sounds silly, but these are real, gripping thoughts. I actually think this way, on some sublevel of my mind. I’m worried that Murphy’s Law will prevail and the horrible outcome will be all my fault. Sometimes I have a real handle on things, and sometimes my anxiety just eats me alive. Two weeks ago Owen fell off a chair in our living room and landed on his head. Later that day, he came down with a fever while he was at day care. I was called at work to come get him. Luckily it was a Tuesday and not a deadline day, but it boffed up my hours and the production flow anyhow. And of course on top of everything I was unshakably convinced that he had a slow-developing concussion from falling off that chair, and that I had doomed him to a life of mental retardation because I dropped him off at day care like usual instead of driving him immediately to the hospital.

The sane among you might note that fever is not a symptom of concussion; that Owen did not, in fact, have any of the symptoms associated with concussion. Yeah, well, that didn’t matter to me at the time. In fact, as I rocked him and sponge-bathed his feverish forehead, I was on the phone to my mother, sobbing and hiccupping and unable to speak for fear, guilt, and shame.

Let me remind you: KID HAD A FEVER. IT HAPPENS. But in my mind it was so much more than that, it was trauma, it was catastrophe, it was Armageddon, and it was all my fault.

I have no point. I don’t know where I’m going with this, aside to say that the anxiety, she is crippling. It’s not crippling every day, but it is there every day. Guilt over working is just one more finely sugared layer on the parfait of my neuroses.

I think a weighty part of my anxiety is living eight hours away from my family and my close friends. Moving around was a good thing when I was younger and single, or even when we were married. There was all that drinking to do, for starters. But now that I have children I just don’t want to fuck around, you know? I love my Baltimore friends, but — well, it’s not the same. The people we were before kids are not the same people we are after kids. I think that’s true for anybody.
I don’t have any answers. Although I did just finish reading “Confessions of a Slacker Mom” and you know what? Wow, did that ever resonate. It’s my manifesto for the month. Muffy Mead-Ferro put into words what I had been trying to articulate, the kind of parenting style I wanted to own: The low-key love’em and let’em live style of the generations preceding mine. Life will happen, both to me and to my son. Not only that, but shit will happen. He’ll fall down. He’ll refuse to eat vegetables. He’ll watch television and throw toys and hear me swear and witness me eating Cheeze Doodles for dinner.

And what I have to work so hard to remember is that this is not child abuse. He will not suffer from the kind of lifestyle I’m giving him, the one with a roof over his head and clothes on his back and food on the table and two parents who love him, and each other, stupid-much. Shit-tons of love. He has these things and I have to keep reminding myself over and over and over again that he will be OK, that I can be a real live person with flaws and vices and he will survive that.

But that is so damn hard to do.

OK. Phew! I didn’t expect this entry to be so, y’know, cathartic! Um, and neurotic. Wow. Fun trip, wasn’t it? All right. We can move on, a little, beyond the borders of my mind. Might be healthier for you, anyway.

Category: motherhood, neuroses

Nearby posts: « previous: All evidence to the contrary, I am feeling much less stabby today | next: Wearin’ O’ the Green »

Comments

22 Responses to “Mamazine, Mamahood”

jess
March 15th, 2006 @ 11:42 pm

Oh how i love you! I had my kids at 27,29,31, and 33. You just met me too late!

You know i understand and feel your pain right? We are feeling the same kind of pain i’m pretty sure. I’m thinking of you MB. Get yourself some porch time soon!
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kris
March 15th, 2006 @ 11:44 pm

Reason 403 why I’m glad you procreate, http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060314/cm_usatoday/theliberalbabybust;_ylt=AhDF2N27L0Fb6hy1OPCMXVas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-
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supamb
March 15th, 2006 @ 11:52 pm

I’m just glad i met you at all, jess!

kris, that article is crazy. will it make you feel better when i tell you we plan to have a couple two-three more?
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paige
March 16th, 2006 @ 12:52 am

so.good.thankyou.
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Tina
March 16th, 2006 @ 8:19 am

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve a) looked for moms under thirty and come up with nothing, and b) obsessed about my daughter’s well-being during some seemingly normal childhood incident like a fever or a minor fall. I also worry about feeding Rhiannon non-organic yoghurt or an apple bought from the non-organic section of the grocery. I’ve loosened up a bit about some things, but I still worry about the occasional pop tart or an overdose of Cartoon Network programming. Then I remember that umpteen generations have been raised under more dire situations and out of those generations have come Einstein, Plato, Johnny Cash and Descartes.

It’s good to know that someone out there is thinking about the same things. I felt like a baby in my lamaze class, since nearly everyone in the class was in their thirties and forties—I would have killed to have another 25 year old in the class, but no dice. It can be lonely not having another mother around the same age in the area.
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patricia
March 16th, 2006 @ 8:32 am

The thing is, the anxiety never ends. When they’re finally all grown up and no longer require that you cut the crusts off their sandwiches, or to kiss their booboos or listen while they vent about how so-and-so at school is such a bitch! and are out there in the real world, you worry that you forgot to teach them something. That you forgot some lesson, some fact, some unnameable thing that will keep them safe and happy in this world. You see them making mistakes and you want so much to just reach in and set them straight again, but you can’t and you just have to trust that what you did was enough, that they know you’re there, supporting them, if they ever need to look back.

I saw on a tv show once (shocking me making a tv reference) a woman who said having children was like taking your heart out and giving it legs. it’s so damn true. it’s stuck with me since the moment i heard it.
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Amy M
March 16th, 2006 @ 8:45 am

Aahh, the guilt of motherhood. I was just talking to a friend about it yesterday, believe me we, as moms, are blessed not only with childbirth but the ability to worry about every thing, to justify everything we do as parents yet to still wonder if we did the right thing.

oh and if it helps, I am only 27 and having my 3rd child. had our first when I was 22, second when I was 25 and now getting ready for # 3,who will be our last biological child. so theres some of us out twenty something moms out there! but most of my friends are 30 something moms.
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Mama C-ta
March 16th, 2006 @ 9:10 am

Every mom needs to read this because I’m sure there isn’t a mother out there that doesn’t feel the same way. Just many of us can’t put it into words so perfectly. Heck half of us can’t even admit this period.

And shit, I’m 28 for 30 more days! It doesn’t matter I act like I’m 63
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bmoremel
March 16th, 2006 @ 9:31 am

one day you’ll realize you worry a lot less and the anxiety isn’t so overwhelming. but it doesn’t ever completely go away - my daughter is 14 and i still panic when i think about her going away to college and drugs and date rape and serial killers…

i try to remind myself that all those years of worrying and protecting will ultimately be the foundation that keeps her on the right track. and that’s really the best any of us can do.
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candace
March 16th, 2006 @ 11:57 am

I started out being a twenty-something mom. Christopher was born when I was 26, and that makes me a very young mom here (most of the moms in my neighborhood have kids as old as mine but they were in their 30s when they started).

But now, I’m 35. So, sorry I didn’t “meet” you sooner!

And all that other stuff you said: yep.
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Amy
March 16th, 2006 @ 2:38 pm

You’ve done such a good job of chronicling the minute-by-minute worries. That Steiner quote is especially good.

As for all the twentysomething parents—they’re out there! But yeah, it’s not like it was when I was growing up and all my mom’s friends were her age and had kids when she did (at 22). I was 24 when my stepson was born—okay, so I didn’t meet him until I was 25, but I *do* know that feeling of showing up at the preschool meeting and feeling like the teen babysitter compared to the other parents. The next two kids came when I was 28 and 30. It did seem, for a while, that the only people my age who had kids were the ones who had them before 20. Now that I’m 35, all my former classmates are procreating like mad. So Maybe you’re just ahead of your time?
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Chantal
March 16th, 2006 @ 3:32 pm

I was 21 when I had my first and wondered the same thing. I felt young and silly when faced with older first time Moms. Like they did it right and I didn’t. Silly! My high school and university friends are either just starting to have kids or just starting to think about it. So now they’re dealing with things I’m way past now that mine are 9, 8, 4 and 3.

As your kids get older you worry less, but about bigger things. Now that’s fun.
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VenturaMom
March 16th, 2006 @ 5:20 pm

Dude, regarding canned vegis…my dd’s only vegitable is canned carrotts. EVERY. DAY. Canned carrotts. Better than a bag of M&Ms, I guess.
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Elizabeth
March 16th, 2006 @ 9:54 pm

Moms in their twenties are hard to find. I have 2 and I’m 27. Only one of my friends from college has kids (3 now) and I haven’t talked to her in a long time (she has her hands full). Another friend is having one soon and she’s 29. But everyone is very different in how they parent (or will parent), I can tell that just from looking at myself and these 2 other women.
I know people obsess, I do (lots), but I guess sometimes you have to step back and ask yourself : “am I doing the best I can do?” and go with that.
Today, for example.. the kids had a lot of cereal (kashi, so it’s pretty darn good for them), and sam played with coins and tubes from our laundry sorter while I sewed. It was snowing, and I’m tired, but I think I did ok today. I worry about it sometimes, but when I look back, it doesn’t seem so bad.
(But also, maybe it’s because I don’t have anyone else to compare to?)
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brando
March 16th, 2006 @ 10:08 pm

my wife and i got married when we were babies and had both our kids when we were still babies, and for the last 7 years it’s kind of been like having 4 kids in the house, except two of them can legally drink. love’em and let’em live is pretty much how we we’ve run the home. they’ve both turned into two very cool, very happy little monsters. and my 7 year old has fallen out of more chairs, heard more foul language and watched me eat more cheeze doodles (okay, malt liquor), than should be humanly possible for a kid who still closes his eyes when people kiss on tv. i imagine you are an awesome parental guardian
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Sarcastic Journalist
March 16th, 2006 @ 10:47 pm

First kid at 24, second at 26. Still 26. We’re a dying breed, aren’t we?
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Ada
March 17th, 2006 @ 12:38 am

I am not in my twenties any longer but I can still understand where you are coming from. My maternity group was strictly 35 and over. I was 30 when Franklin was born. I look 16 (or I did then). I wasn’t taken seriously, I didn’t relate to the money issues they ere having, and I wasn’t trying to get pregnant as quick as possible because my clock was ticking. It’s not that these issues aren’t valid, they just weren’t mine. In a rich city, many people wait to have their children. They buy the house, they establish their careers, they get their toys… and then they feel secure to have their children. I’m not completely solid on this, but life doesn’t seem the same as when our parents were young and having children in their 20’s - at least it doesn’t seem that way here. Things aren’t guaranteed to get better, you aren’t guaranteed to get a raise along with inflation and your parents are not necessarily prepared to help you out if things get tough. As a result, in my cirlce, the people who have children Franklin’s age are my professors, my boss and the guy who owns the squash clob - financially stablished people with morgages and stable somewhat more stable incomes. If I meet someone my age (or even younger), the pregnancy was not planned. In other cities, in other cirles, this may be different, but this is what I find here.

Oh, and the anxierty? Lordy woman, I understand. I am crippled with the thought that I may totally fuck up his first memory.
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vasilisa
March 17th, 2006 @ 4:14 am

wow, more women under 30? man, finally. I’m actually feeling old now Had a kid at 26, now 27 and plan on having more. None of my friends are even thinking it…

And i’m never taking pregnancy classes again. Serioiusly, women in my class could’ve been my mothers (ok, i’m exaggerating, but only a little). I felt like a kid there.

I don’t get modern women… Don’t they just want to have it all over and done with ? Then you can have a nice retirement, when you are actually still young enough to ENJOY it!
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Jenn
March 17th, 2006 @ 7:32 pm

Trust me you are not abusing your son….you want some horror stories to make you feel better you let me know:):):) Love ya and I wish you lived closer too
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Annie
March 18th, 2006 @ 1:33 pm

Okay, so this is what I have to remind myself of when I’m having the Mother of All Mother Freakouts:

When we were one and two and five and ten, did our parents obsess about what kind of yogurt we got? Did your mom play with you every second of every day of your childhood? Or did she in fact let you watch the Kids Incorporated marathon at least 114 times because you had videotaped it (on your brand new technicredible VCR) and it kept you busy singing and dancing while she actually did her own thing?

Two guesses which one my mama did, and I must say I’ve turned out quite well. I know what you mean, though. I have the same panic attacks about Norah, and whether she can eat tomatoes or if letting her sleep for three hours (when she’s obviously tired) is just too long and she’s going to wake up intellectually stunted. Maybe at 26 (me too!) we’re afraid that we’re too young to do this right. But there is no right, as far as I can tell - think of all the things our parents did that we weren’t allowed to do, and they survived. And in most cases, they’re even fairly high-functioning human beings.

So! We worry too much and we’re too young! But I’m pretty happy about the fact that when Norah grows up and realizes that her parents were sort of cool, I’ll still be young enough to deserve the title. How cool will it be to party with Owen? What kind of adult will he get to be? And won’t you love meeting him as a somewhat-younger peer? Bitchin’, I tell ya.

God, this is long. I should have just emailed. My bad for dominating your comment space.
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supamb
March 21st, 2006 @ 10:30 pm

Thank you, Annie. [sweet Kids Incorporated name drop!]

Actually, thank you, everybody. So many good comments, good points. Me so overwhelmed, me not know what to say.

As evidenced by the fact that it took me, like, a week to put any reply here.
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Nicole
April 3rd, 2006 @ 6:07 pm

Hey there, I am also in this boat. I am 23 and have a 3 year old son, and a daughter that will be one this summer, I am also expecting our third child this fall. It seems like there is now one with 2-3 kids that is even in a 5-10 year range of my age. I am happy to see that there is someone else who has seen this age shift! My husband is only 26 and although he has a couple of his same-aged friends that maybe have a newborn, NO one my age has even one child. It makes it a little difficult to relate to other mothers sometime when your memories are my little ponys and theres were bell bottoms!
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