I’m rather sure that there is not a mother out there that at some point in their mothering career doesn’t stand up one day and realize that they have turned into the one thing that feminists around the globe abhor… A virtual slave to her family. You might say ‘isn’t that a bit harsh Tracy? I mean a slave?! I say no. For I know. Somehow, slowly, over time… I have become a slave.
It starts simply enough. They’re babies after all… and you need to care for them. They depend on you for every little need. We feed them, clean them, comfort them when they cry, keep them warm, protect them. We rock them to sleep, we hang on every little hiccup that comes over the monitor and we (first time mothers especially) jump up and run to their bedside at the slightest little squeak… basically we are condition, and condition them, from the onset that whatever it is that they need (or think they need) we are there to provide. And so it goes. They grow, and don’t need so much, yet still we bend over backwards to make them happy. We’re conditioned and they expect it after all. Till one day you find yourself scurrying around, answering every demand put to you, no matter how ludicrous or demeaning the request, and what’s more you’re HURRYING to get it done because you know if you don’t the wrath these little masters will come down upon you and you know if you don’t get that snack in front of the ravenous young or get the pink skirt washed before tomorrow morning for your sensitive fashion conscious daughter to where because it’s Emma’s birthday at school tomorrow, that chaos will descend upon your happy household and Yee Gods!! As nurturer, healer, protector, caretaker, we can’t have that. Till one day while in the middle of fulfilling some request, normally a little something that you’ve done a hundred thousand and one times before, you are hit with the realization that this, this maid service, has gotten completely out of hand. AND IT MUST STOP!!!
For me it happened a few weeks after the Christmas holiday’s had ended. Ok, well, I can say that I knew I was being taken advantage of before now, I think every mother deep in the back of their minds realize this long before they put their foot down and make a stand for their rights, but it didn’t REALLY hit home till that day. That day was like any other you might say. My two older heathens were off at school where the teaching of reading, writing and manners was happily passed off to someone else J, and it was just me and my youngest… my little sweet adorable angel, Jillian. An angel you say? Now come Tracy, you’re exaggerating here. And I say, no really!!! Jillian is a copy and paste kind of child. If one could copy her, paste her, and make as many little Jilly’s as one could I’d make a thousand. And then I’d make more, and then, maybe, just maybe, I’d make some more and gulp, share them with all the other deserving moms out there who for just one day would like a sweet, adorable, perfect child who at three years of age could be counted on to play quietly and independently, who afterwards would declare “This is a mess!” then proceed to clean it UP! Who can always be counted on for a good cuddle and smile when your feeling down or conversely, in the few times when she’s sad can be easily cheered by a quick hug, kiss and a few sweet words, who is always willing to ‘help’ mom with whatever household task she’s currently doing (switching laundry, sweeping, dusting, dishes… you name it, she’s willing to help) and who ALSO knows to go off and amuse herself when mom’s ‘busy’. I mean, what more could a mother want, right? She’s perfect. She’s an ANGEL!!!
So I’m home, alone with my little angel (ok, ok, stop scoffing at me. Yes, I’ll give a little here. She’s an angel now. And yes, I’m sure I’ll pay for this later on… because right now she’s independent but she still thinks the world of me and wants to emulate and please me… as a tween and beyond she’ll be independent and well, you know what kids think of their parents in those years… I’m in trouble, that’s all I got to say on the subject.) So as I was saying (if you’d stop interrupting) is I was at home, alone with my little ANGEL, and I’m typing away as another brainstorm had hit me during the previous night when Jillian comes up and nudges her way under my arm.
“I want something to drink.”
“Ok. Just a minute.” I responded absently and continued to type. A little hand grabbed my sleeve and pulled. Incredulously I looked down into a pouty little face.
“I want Juice!!!” She demanded. And oh, if you could have seen her face. It was a face that promised divine retribution if I didn’t snap to and get her that juice now. You probably think this is when my moment of enlightenment came. When I would realize that my perfect sweet little angel was falling from grace, treating me, her MOTHER, as nothing more than a common maidservant, and would soon became just another heathen in my household. But it’s not.
“Ok.” I continued to type frantically, trying desperately to squeeze out as much ‘me time’ as I could before my littlest wrath was released upon me. “can you find your sippy cup for mommy?” I asked in a desperate attempt to buy time.
“I don’t know where it is.”
“Well can you find it?” Uh oh, big mistake. I’d pushed my little angel too far. Without any further warning the already volatile situation exploded and my sweet little perfect? Angel was reduced to a blubbering mass of tears on the floor beside me.
Tears + pitiful face + guilty mom = getting what you want.
It’s a formula that has been passed down through the ages, from one child to another, from oldest child to youngest, like a great grass roots movement every child learns through brother, sister, friends and peers these timeless tricks to getting what you want, and getting it now.
But yet, I still wasn’t aware of just how I was being manipulated. The mommy in me could see only one thing.
My littlest was crying. I, intent on stealing these moments of ‘me time’ had neglected my baby’s needs. And now, here she was before me, thirsty, crying, and pitifully helpless. She couldn’t get her own drink, she was too young, and she needed ME to do these things for her. It was my job as a mother and by neglecting her needs I’d made her CRY. So I did what any brainwashed mother did. I jumped up, searched down the missing sippy cup (it was in the middle of the TV room floor) and get my little angel some Juice. I didn’t even water it down I felt so bad.
Child happy again, she retreated from the room to go play with her polly pockets. Phew. Crisis averted.
I sat down, ready to resume my typing, yet I couldn’t. I’d lost the rhythm, I’d FORGOTTEN what I’d been about to type and even rereading what I’d been doing didn’t do anything towards stirring my creative juices once more. And THAT, that was when the little light bulb went off.
This had to stop!!! My sweet angel was being corrupted!!! I was raising HEATHENS!!! I was an affront to every mother out there. Yes, it was our job to provide for and protect our young but it was ALSO our duty to teach them the ways of the adult world. And that included manners, respect, patience, understanding… etc… I knew it wasn’t going to stop overnight though. I had to pick small battles, win ground, fortify, then strike out for more. And my first battle would be… yup, how to politely request a liquid beverage as needed for the quenching of thirst.
The next few weeks of my ‘How to ask for a drink’ campaign went reasonably well. Sure we had our moments when wills butted and only through sheer stubbornness and dedication to my cause that I made it through. But in the end I’d won! I’d taught them to not only show respect by asking nicely and using words like please and thank you, but to keep track of their own cups and wait patiently for me to complete the request of obtaining them a drink. Endless lectures of patience and usage of such words as ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ finally paid off. The rough edges around my little heathens had been smoothed down and I was routinely hearing pleases and thank you’s for not just beverage requests but snack requests as well! YEAH! I’d won the campaign. Or so I’d thought…
So there it was, one thirty in the afternoon, Jilly was absorbed in one of my favorite educational shows on PBS, the older two had not yet returned from school and I was trying to get a little shut eye in my room. Oh stop, I have a good excuse here. you see I am the mother of three young children (no that’s not my only excuse), and AS a mother of three young children not only am I consistently woken up at night for various reasons: ranging from ‘bad dreams’ to potty runs, to my all time favorite ‘my blanket fell down! –(that one’s Jilly’s current favorite, her toddler guard has been taken off the bed to prepare her for a big kid bed and so as she thrashes and turns throughout the night it eventually slips off her onto the floor, the floor that is 18 inches down and would require getting out of the bed to collect her blankets… Jilly does NOT get out of bed on her own. Even now, at 3 ½ years old, a year and a half after removing the side of the crib and two months after taking off the toddler safety bar she still wakes up in the morning, sits up, and then proceeds to announce, quiet firmly but in the sweetest sing song voice, that ‘It’s Morning!!’ and then repeats this statement until you eventually walk upstairs to get her. She will do this a dozen times until you come, she will do this for TEN Minutes until you come! I’ve told her she’s old enough to come out of the room on her own in the morning; I’ve tried to wait her out… but haven’t succeeded. Her pitiful cries of ‘It’s morning!’ eventually turn to forlorn cries for ‘MOMMY!’ and I ask you, what mom can ignore that?) Aside done, and this was still not the reason why I desperately needed a nap that afternoon. You see, as the mother of three young children, three cute adorable, dirty, germy young children I have a tendency to be sick a lot. Especially in the winter when germs are abundant and the weather lends to cozy family intimacies within the walls of the house (ie. We get a good dose of cabin fever. I never knew what cabin fever really meant till I was a stay at home mom of three kids, now I know. It’s not the generally believed analogy for the boredom and mild craziness that people experience in the winter when they are stuck inside the house for weeks on end. Nope, uh huh, I’ve learned through personal experience that it has a much more literal translation. In winter you are stuck inside be it your home, the grocery store, work, your car, so are your children, and they are stuck inside the most wonderful germ breeding grounds there are! SCHOOL and PLAYCENTERS!!! So they go, picking up these unwanted stowaways, and bring them HOME where mom is anxiously waiting to receive her long lost young and bring them into the protection of her home, where they rub their germy little hands all over her and dispense sweet kiss from slobbery mouths on snotty faces. And the inevitable happens… MOM GETS SICK!!! And let me tell you. Once the walls of mom’s immune system has been breached once, it becomes very, very easy to breach them again. So she gets sick, starts to recover, but never quite all the way before she gets bombarded with another attack and falls prey to these evil enemies again, and again, and again!!!!
So there I was, still in recovery, and trying to get a few minutes of shut eye before the rest of my horde returned home and had JUST SUCCEEDED in actually falling asleep when something pinged my on the back of my shoulder (I’m a side sleeper). Groggily I turn my head towards the far side of the bed, carefully restraining my attack instincts for I suspected (correctly) that this was no foe that had entered the borders of my territory but was one of my own charges, and met the gaze of my smiling three year old. (Ahh… she’s so cute, my attack instincts receded a bit more)
“What is it honey?” I managed to whisper, rubbing my eyes to clear them.
“I want juice please.” She announced.
Ah, she’d said please, good, my ‘training’ was finally paying off. “Bring me your sippy cup.” I automatically replied.
“I did!” She announced happily.
Confused I opened my lids all the way and tried to roll over but was halted by the presence of something hard and cylindrical. Ah, this must have been the sting I felt on my shoulder, I’d thought it my imagination till now. Curiously I shifted till I was able to see just what had hit me and was met with the sight of, yup, you guessed it, a sippy cup! She’d THROWN IT at me!!! Yes, she had, as I’ve been trying to teach her for weeks now, BROUGHT me the sippy cup before asking for something more to drink but I ask you, when, in all my lecturing, did I ever tell her to THROW IT at me? Especially when I’m SLEEPING!?!
“Jill, did you throw this cup at mommy?” I asked in a most reasonable tone of voice. Her smile widened. “Jilly it’s not nice to throw things at people. You could have hurt mommy.” Her little brow furrowed in confusion. I sighed inwardly. “Next time you bring me your sippy cup just hand it to me, don’t throw it ok?”
“Ok mommy.” She said contritely. (I think deep down I recognized that there was a touch of cheekiness in the way she said it, but deep down I also chose to ignore it.)
“Good girl.”
She smiled. “I said please!” She announced happy once more.
“Yes, yes you did.”
So I did what any mother would do when faced with a bright smile and the word please, I kissed my extra five minutes of shuteye good bye and got up to get my daughter some juice. And, yes, my request to not throw the sippy cup in the future did work… she has not thrown the cup at either me or her father since that one time. Though one time she rolled it too my feet from across the room when I’m sitting at my desk working, squeaked out ‘Juice please’ then giggled and ran off. And another time I was working on dinner when she appeared by my side, imperiously stretched her royal hand out, with said treasured sippy cup in it, while turning her nose in the other direction and pronouncing “More juice. Please.” (hey at least she remembered that.). And my all time favorite was when her father was stretched out on the couch sleeping and she got his attention my ‘tapping’ the cup repeatedly into his forehead till he woke up then, tipping her head adoringly from side to side, nicely asked him for ‘More juice please daddy?’. As daddy said, she’s ‘darn lucky’ she’s cute because I about reached out and strangled her for hitting me.
So yes, children can be taught, and mothers don’t have to be slaves… just don’t be surprised when what they learn is not exactly what you were trying to teach. Inevitably they are children, and we are their mothers, the dynamics of this relationship is longstanding… We teach, they learn, but they are their own beings and exacting conformity to our parental wishes and expectations will never happen. They will always find ways to express their individuality and in doing so will continually ‘test the limit’s’ on our patience and dedication to the task of ‘good parenting’.
But I ask you, would we really want it any other way? After all, how boring the world would be if all children were the same, perfect little copy and paste angels lacking in any individual characteristics. So you were right. Jillian is not an Angel in the divine sense of the word. She’s just a child, a cute adorable child who, in general, has an easy going eager to please nature. But she’s my little imperfect angel. And I’ll take her and my other little heathens any day of the week.
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