Neil, of
Citizen of the Month fame, often writes (bitches?) about so-called Mommy Bloggers. Frankly, I do not have the concept of the "Mommy Blogger" fully defined in my own mind's eye. What I actually envision, when I hear that term, is some sort of soccer mom, but one who has a blog and uses it to rhapsodize on the joys of having great kids who are involved in every single athletic and extra-curricular activity at school, on the bliss of domesticity combined with a rich intellectual life (after all, if those women blog, it's because they have a brain, and want to use it.)
I have never really bonded with other women who are parents. Well, let me expound on this, because there is a slight caveat to this assertion.
My daughter, Claire, was born just a couple of months after a "friend" of mine (who was also one of my former work colleagues) and her husband had had their first child, also a daughter. We bonded big time while pregnant (we each had lavish baby showers for each other, and both made sure that those were not all "female" affairs - husbands and boyfriends were invited; that made us feel "progressive," in a feminist kind of way), and as mothers of infant- and baby- daughters. But I realized, only months later, that this woman was to be filed under "highly toxic friends" - she had been incredibly competitive at work which, in a way, had driven her to leave the company where we both worked (she would have probably been laid off, had she stayed on for another month or two), and, after we both became parents, the race was on as to who, between the two of us, would be the better mother, and whose child was developing more rapidly and showing the greatest promise of ever being admitted to Harvard.
This became so untenable that I severed all ties with that so-called friend (following a nasty situation in which she had put me, rather maliciously.) We did "make-up" some months later, but things were never quite the same. After our move to Pittsburgh, she and her family (she later had a son) vanished from our life. I reconnected very briefly, years later, with her - by then she had divorced and re-married. I assume that her daughter, who is Claire's age, is graduating from college this year (I know for sure that she did not go to Harvard.)
But I am, once more, going completely off-topic on this post. I really did not mean to write about Mommy Bloggers or about mothers who live vacariously through their children. I try not to do it, but I will plead "guilty as charged," when it comes to being tremendously proud of my daughter and of her accomplishments. Frankly, I do not live vacariously through Claire - I just admire her boundless creativity and amazingly clever way with words. Sometimes, I wonder how someone that good-looking, good-hearted, creative, clever, and smart, could have come from my own flesh. I do not believe that I was ever a "competitive" mom - in fact, I did not care for most of her classmates' mothers when she was in middle and high school, the PTA moms who were, in my humble opinion, way too involved with their kids' extra-curricular activities (on the other hand, I do acknowledge that high school sports teams, cheerleading squads, and bands do need to raise money to remain alive, and that those women deserve kudos for their tireless efforts to help with such fund raising. I just could never be one of them. Also, I was not a detached mother - I attended everyone of Claire's concerts, play performances, and other school events in which she participated. I helped her prepare for her homecoming dances and proms and, even though I kind of raised an eyebrow when she made Homecoming and Prom Court, I thought that it was kind of cool too. But, of course, having been raised in France, I could not quite relate to
exactly what that meant and how it felt.)
Why is my entry, then, titled "Mommydom - the cake years"? Well, it is probably because I found raising Claire from infancy through, let's say, the seventh grade, the most difficult time of my parenting experience. Some of this was due to the fact that my marriage was on the rocks for most of those years - in fact, things got tremendously better once I got the job I have now and I left my husband, who then actually turned into my very best friend (I doubt that anyone on earth will ever know me as well as he does.)
Claire's high school years were not that tough. She was a happy, highly social kid, and she was very involved with her school choir and loved theater. I was, however, not a stage mother by any means. In fact, every time Claire was in some sort of singing competition, auditioned for a play, or was in one, I'd always get incredibly anxious about it - because I always dreaded that she would get hurt if she did not place well in a competition, or did not get a part in a play or a musical. Of course, this happened a few times along the way and, each time, I found it very very difficult to handle those downturns in a mature way (so that I could, in turn, help her handle them in a mature way.) Claire was a good student, never one whom you had to coax or yell at to get any homework and school assignments done. She hung out with good kids, and was not into nasty mischief. I am quite certain that, if her crowd did anything "mischievous," on a scale of 1-10 on the "potential trouble" meter, it was probably, at best (or at worst), in the realm of 3 or 4. I always trusted her, period.
There was a slightly difficult moment when it was time to decide on a college but, in retrospect, things folded into place in a rather providential way (funny that the self-proclaimed atheist that I am would use such an adjective.) In the end, she opted for Pitt, and a free education (dad is on the faculty at Pitt, and "free tuition" are still my favorite two words in the English language!).
The college years have been great too. Of course, there were slight emotional roller-coaster moments tied to relationships, school-induced stress, and the like, but, for the most part, Claire handled her college career with great wisdom, enthusiasm, and decorum. Meltdowns did occur, of course, but nothing was ever alarming.
What is amazing in all of this, and it took me a while to recognize it, is that my daughter is now a bona fide adult. Sure, her father and I will still be contributing a bit to her upkeep until she is completely done with her education, but she has become more and more self-sufficient, and our conversations are now conducted at a level that is less and less from a parent-child perspective, but on a peer-to-peer basis. I believe that she now addresses Rick and me more often as friends or as intellectual mentors than as just "maman" and "papa." Of course, she still solicits our advice once in a while and, every so often, we have to guide her a bit, but, for the most part, she is very focused and self-directed.
I have written on this blog a number of times that one of my goals, as a mother, was never to be like mine. I lived in fear of my mother as a teenager and young adult and, for the most part, I still do - which is ridiculous, when you think that I am 55 and that my mother is 86. I do not want to be, ever, one of those domineering mothers who treats her adult child as a five-year old. I do not expect to be my daughter's best friend - I will always be her mother, after all - but I want to have a warm and loving relationship with her, and I want her to know that, whatever the circumstances, I will always be there for her.
And, frankly, I can honestly say that I am now enjoying the Cake Years of Mommydom.
Thanks, Claire, for all that you have brought to my life.
To read my past musings about Mother's Day, go
here,
here, and
here.
Oh, and I got the second volume of the Pléiade edition of
A la Recherche du temps perdu from Rick and Claire for Mother's day, with this nice little note:
Bonne fête des mères à la meilleure maman du monde entier. Thanks for this great gift, Rick and Claire! (and is there a better gift for Mother's Day than a volume of a work by Proust, who worshiped his mother and grandmother? It sure beats getting a blender or a pink iPod - although an 8gb iPod nano, not pink, would make a cool gift too!)
A VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL OF MY FAITHFUL READERS WHO ARE MOMS!Labels: mother's day, motherhood
