This article in the Huffington Post has been getting a lot of play in my social networks, and each time I see it posted, I feel a little sad. There’s a lively internet community of mothers of young children. It turns out blogging is on the short list of hobbies that are compatible with the full time parenting lifestyle, and it’s also a satisfying way to reach out and connect with others. However, parenting a very small child (or multiples of them) can give you tunnel vision, too. The Mommy Wars are particularly hard on moms of infants and toddlers, at times turning them into Very Defensive people with tunnel vision.
That leads to turning an innocuous comment like, “Enjoy every moment, the time goes by so fast,” into this:
- “ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF!? IF NOT, YOU SHOULD BE! ONE DAY YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU DIDN’T!” TRUST US!! IT’LL BE OVER TOO SOON! CARPE DIEM!”
Come on, now. Really? Are we sixteen years old that we are still so sure the older generation can’t possibly understand us? Or is it perhaps possible that the senior citizen accosting us with the “Enjoy every moment, the time goes by so fast,” message may actually be sharing something new, something that is hard to perceive or understand when you’re in the midst of the day-to-day, minute-to-minute challenge of caring for small children.
First of all, let’s consider the idea that this older woman doesn’t know or forgot how difficult it is to raise children. Is that realistic? We are talking about someone who parented somewhere between the 50′s and the 70′s–a time when there were no disposable diapers and fathers were not expected to help out much, if at all. In fact, even as late as the seventies, many fathers took pride in being clueless about child care. I know some Moms of the older generation who can entertain a crowd with stories about the ONE TIME their husband tried to take care of the children. Not every mother of the 2010′s gets help from a supportive partner, but it is frowned upon for Dads to be clueless and uninvolved. Plus, many of those women had far greater numbers of children than is customary in our time.
My maternal grandmother raised nine children. At one point she had seven children under the age of eight. And she worked full time as a nurse. I have been told that she would often disappear into the bedroom with her door shut to read a book, leaving the kids to fend for themselves, Lord-of-the-Flies fashion. Raising kids was no walk in the park for her.
But grandma was gaga for babies, and I am pretty sure I have heard her say “Enjoy every minute.” This is not a judging message. It means something else, something that’s hard to understand if you’re feeling harried and defensive, but true nonetheless.
The truth is that you lose your babies. Sure, they are replaced by adults with whom, if you’re lucky, you’ll have a rewarding relationship. But when they are small, you get very attached to them AS babies and small children. At first, you don’t feel the loss, because each advance in independence and maturity makes life a little easier, and because each stage is cuter than the last.
But at some point, when your child is, oh, say, twelve-and-three-quarters, just to grab a totally random example off the top of my head, you realize that your baby and your cute preschooler is gone. You may realize it when you hear a strange man’s voice in the house and realize it’s your “baby.” Or you may realize it when your daughter asks for the car keys. Whatever. But it happens to every parent.
And when that happens, it hurts.
If you ever wonder why most grandparents have so much more patience for your little monsters than you yourself, or why they are so indulgent or so darned happy, it’s because they lost all of their babies, and are now enjoying every moment. They are trying to share this hard-earned wisdom with you, as well as a little bit of the pain of their own loss. If you can process that perspective, it will make the wait until bedtime easier.