Emma Bull and my mom (together again for the first time)

[mrissa]

"These books have the potential to sneak around the wall of preconception, to ooze through the cracks in it, and deliver their message: diversity in humanity is no threat. There are things in the universe stranger to you than anything you've yet seen. Don't be afraid of them, because amazing things are coming, unbelievable things are already here, and if you accept them, they will bring you joy."
--Emma Bull, "Why I Write Fantasy," Double Feature

I didn't mean to save this for Mother's Day, but I didn't get around to it yesterday, and now here it is: strangely appropriate, because when I read these words of Emma Bull's, what I hear is my mother's voice.

I don't even remember how it came up, but I remember exactly where we were: in the car, pulling up to our favorite Chinese place. I was home on break from college, and I had said something about how "normal" had never been a word that applied to our house. And my mom just stopped for a minute, and when she spoke, her voice was really upset. "We knew you'd never be like the other kids," she said. "From the time you were really little, we knew. So that was all we could give you: that it was good to be different, that you should respect and love things that are different. It was the only thing we could think of to do."

I was old enough to understand why she sounded almost anguished. For the first time in my life, I could see what it must have been to be my mom when I was a toddler, to watch this stubbornly cheerful little critter toddle around having Socratic dialogs between her finger puppets. To watch the neighbors notice that the things your kid said and did and wanted were not the same things their kids said and did and wanted. To know that it wouldn't be too long before she'd be in school, and to worry what it would mean to her when people were less delighted with her questions. Nobody who wanted average, typical children would ever have married my father -- and as much as my mom was our closest attempt at social camouflage when I was little, she didn't quite manage it herself. Too many of her own dials were turned up to 11. But when she talked about it then, I could see that she hadn't quite known what it would mean, to be the mom, to be my mom, and not to be able to protect me all the way.

I know why she hadn't quite known, because I don't know. I don't know what it will be like to be a mom, because you're not just a mom, you're the mom of someone specific, and that changes everything in ways you can't ever predict. You can learn about common childhood illnesses and how to change diapers and what the most common milestones are in children's development. But you can't study up in advance on which actual kid or kids you will get.

She did the right thing, her and my dad. They made sure that home was a safe place to be different and a safe place to ask questions. So when I came upon stories of the fantastic, the literature focused on things stranger than I've yet seen, I knew the place, and it felt like home, only bigger.

Lots of good parents talk about wanting to give their children the world. Mine gave me the worlds, because it was the only thing they could think to do.

Comments

[palinade.livejournal.com]

Your mother sounds like a very neat person.

And when I say that, I mean it in a very distinct way--mothers too often become consumed by their role as parent and tend to lose their own identity in the deluge of "mother" and "wife". Some become consumed by their career, but somewhere at the top of the list of things they are is "mother". It's an odd social thing, I think.

But the way your describe your mother makes her sound like an adult individual anyone of like mind could sit beside and drink tea. What a wonderful idea.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My mom feels like she has gotten to choose how much of her identity is as "wife" and "mother" and how much is in other things. I think that makes a lot of difference for her.

And yep, she's good for a cuppa much of the time.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

I once wrote a response to some feminist texts in a grad level critical theory course complaining about women often seeming to lose their individual identity in becoming "mother." At the time I was saddened at how much in the minority I was for seeing this. Thank you for showing me that I'm not alone (and that there is hope).

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

You're lucky. And so are those of us who reap the benefits of them having let you be you.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful! I think the best thing my mom ever did for me, was to divorce my dad, who is a amazing, but extremely inflexible person. She saw what it was doing to us kids as we were getting older, and says that's what gave her the strength to leave: to let us know that there were some things a person shouldn't stick around for, that there were better, other, ways of relating to someone, and to give us room to breathe.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Divorce is almost never a happy thing, so I'm sorry that's the choice she had to make, but I'm glad that your mom had the strength of character to get the positive lesson across and not just something negative.

I sold an essay once about how positive it was for me that my mom let me quit sometimes. Girl Scout camp, for example: I hated the one overnight out of the week of day camp, and I had tried it for two years in a row and just plain did not like it. So she didn't make me stay out there for the overnight, even though people told her she ought to make me "finish what I started" and it would "build character." She said, "This is supposed to be fun. What does it teach my kid if she has to be miserable in the name of fun?" It was a smaller-scale lesson than yours, but I think it's a good one: sometimes it really is time to give up and do something else, because there are better options out there.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Besides, some of us already have enough character. Anymore character and we become downright eccentric!

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Laura and I try to do that with Reid. Except I'm not sure we'd even know how to aim for "normal": we're just *not*.

So we have our beautiful 3-yr-old son who still has no interest in toilets, but who wanted us to roll down his window in the car, so that "wind can make water cold" (his bottled water had gotten warm sitting in the car, and he wanted to hold it out the window). Should anyone care to make comments about the pace of his development, they can, well, go do something impolite.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In general, I think comments about the pace of anyone's child's development are best left for informed professionals, even if the kids aren't beautiful and brilliant. Gentle enthusiasm is acceptable ("isn't it fun that he's interested in science already!"), but snide criticism is not.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

People make more comments about the toilet training, actually. But we got Official Pediatric Endorsement last month, so thhbbbttthhpphhh to them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised people make comments about the toilet training -- people are good at fixating on negatives sooner than positives -- but I'm saying they oughtn't. Drive-by Parenting Bad.

On the other hand, when you do have a trained medical professional saying that there's a problem and a kid should be looked at in case it's something serious (which you, clearly, don't; I'm thinking of another, non-toilet-training example), it worries me when the parents seem to want to stick their fingers in their ears and sing. It must be such a hard balance, between fussing over every little thing and letting things go too long.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

It must be such a hard balance, between fussing over every little thing and letting things go too long.

I've been extremely relieved that it hasn't been something we've had to worry about, except for the jaundice when he was first born. But we trust our pediatrician, so we'd probably listen to her.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

My understanding from very occasionally looking at the pediatrician advice (usually out of boredom and it being the only intelligent reading in the clinic) is that it is possible to traumatize a child by insisting on toilet training too eary. Waiting until the child is ready, even waiting until the child is four or five, does not cause any trauma. The biggest problem is playschool and kindergarten, where they insist on non-diapered children.

People are very, very skittish about piss and shit. Me, too. Cultural upbrining. It can be hard to accept the rate of an individual child's development. However, the only example I know of a child raised like that became, at twelve, a remarkably self-possesed young woman, with all the signs of growing up to be a calm and powerful adult. (She also wan't handed round when she was a baby. As a toddler she was extremely shy. She was never, ever forced into any contact with other people that she didn't choose. It was, I suspect, damned incovnienent, but I really like the idea of a girl-child being taught from infancy that she has the right to decide what situations and what people she is comfortable with.)

[mkille.livejournal.com]

it is possible to traumatize a child by insisting on toilet training too eary. Waiting until the child is ready, even waiting until the child is four or five, does not cause any trauma.

That's what our pediatrician said, yep. She also said one of her kids waited that long, too, and has turned out just fine. It's nice to get firsthand reassurance that way.

The biggest problem is playschool and kindergarten, where they insist on non-diapered children.

Reid's playschool is run by a family friend who shares our same general parenting philosophy. Otherwise, yes, it would be a problem. As for kindergarten--he's so desperate to go already (the bus! the backpack!) that it would probably motivate him to learn, in and of itself.

She was never, ever forced into any contact with other people that she didn't choose.

We do that with Reid, too, still. With people he doesn't know well, he'll often hide behind our legs. We'll ask him if he wants to say hi, and if he doesn't, we say to the person in question: "Maybe next time."

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

But you can't study up in advance on which actual kid or kids you will get.

Nope. Too true. I was just thinking like family or the people you bump into that might be friends you don't know what you will draw. The choice being what you do with it. The difference for me being that this was a person I couldn't walk away from, and someone I felt responsible for.

I never wanted children, and my Ben was so different than me, and the early years pretty tough. It changed me. Which brings me back full circle. I never wanted a mother's day gift because I look up and there it is. Because you learn more than you teach you get more than you give; they gift you.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

A couple of comments here: First of all, I used to buy into that whole "mothers lose their identity" stuff before I had a child. Now I'm a mom, and I spend a lot of time with other mothers, and I have yet to meet one who "lost her identity." Please. People who have emotional problems to start with are likely to carry them through to their mothering. But raising a child is a demanding career. One doesn't do it 8 hours a day, nor even 12. It's hardly surprising that mothers, especially mothers of very young children, have no time to think or talk of other things. But we try! Oh, do we try. Anyone who believes that moms lose their identities should try sitting in on a play group. It may be a challenge to one's identity, but most of us come out the other side fuller, richer, more mature, and more fully ourselves for the experience. I think that stuff about identity is feminist crapola (and I consider myself a feminist).

Potty training has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence or age-appropriate development. I have a very good, nearly fool proof method of preventing your kid from being the last child in his cohort to be potty trained, but no one ever wants to try it when I tell them, it's so positively horrifying. Strange, it's what my grandma did with all nine... :-)

Very nice tribute to your Mom, Mris. Deep down, I think everyone is "different." In families where it's important to fit in, there'd have been some way to shoehorn you in to be like everyone else. In families where individuality is celebrated, there is no such thing as "average" or "normal." Everyone is different and special in their own way. Guess which kind I come from, and therefore prefer?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

You knew someone was going to ask.... Horrifying?

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. I cloth-diapered my son and he potty trained spontaneously between 2 and 2.5. It works! Our diaper service even offered free diapers after 2.5 years, they were so sure the tots would prefer going potty.

I think the later age of potty training these days has nothing to do with different child raising methods, either more relaxed or more nurturing or whatever you want to call it. I think it has everything to do with that high tech gel they put in the disposable diapers that keeps the kiddo from feeling wet.

I tell everyone I can about this, but no one has ever, EVER taken my advice on this subject. They would rather change diapers for an extra year or two, I guess. The thing that gets me is that it's a huge marketing scam. I even canceled the diaper service after a couple of months because I discovered it was really not that hard to throw the diapers in the wash. There's a whole industry invested in convincing mothers that keeping their babies bottoms clean is a complicated, high-tech, and dangerous process that requires the purchase of *products*. Anyway, there it is. The secret handshake. The magic key.

I must say, just to be snarky, anyone who has a child going to kindergarten who is not potty trained needs to seek professional help. *sheesh* That's just gross. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I've been baffled by the commercials for special diapers that will help your toddler feel more wet. I keep thinking, "Buy cheaper diapers."

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the regular diapers stop coming in large enough sizes...

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I think the later age of potty training these days has nothing to do with different child raising methods, either more relaxed or more nurturing or whatever you want to call it. I think it has everything to do with that high tech gel they put in the disposable diapers that keeps the kiddo from feeling wet.

Cloth diapers do in fact work, as does simply putting the kid in little-kid underwear, or leaving underwear off entirely (as one family we know did).

There's a cost-benefit calculation that goes on with these options--if the primary caregiver is not the gung-ho type, having them clean up the resulting messes can simply not be worth it.

Reid wears pull-ups or little-kid undies now. He tells us immediately when he's wet, and he knows how to "hold it" so as to not overfill his underthings...but the toilet distresses him to no end. Ah well.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

He'll figure it out soon enough. My aunt and uncle had three kids and on the last one, they decided not to do the potty training at all. They were too busy and tired, so they'd put a fresh disposable diaper on him in the morning, let him run around in it all day, and change it again when he went to bed. At some point, he trained himself. I think that's the key--just don't worry about it. Kids want to be like their parents. They will go potty. Way too much energy is wasted on potty training in our society. FWIW, I'm a very lazy person and didn't find messing around with cloth diapers to be very difficult at all. I did use disposables for outings and one at night to save on night changes. If you look around on parenting bulletin boards, you'd think cloth diapering was the most horrible, barbaric practice anyone could possibly imagine. I thought it was no big deal, and I do believe it made the transition to potty a bit smoother in our house.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I must hang around in Greener pastures, because I know lots of people who have used cloth diapers or considered it or feel guilty that they don't, and "barbarity" was never their reason not to. Parental convenience was generally the reason I've heard, usually along the lines of, "I know it's better for the environment but."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Talk to yhlee about how people treat her socially now that she has a kid. Some people end up really pressured by their surroundings not to have other interests besides motherhood. (I don't think she'd say she's primarily pressured by other mothers, which may be an important point.) I also have known people who just assumed that their friends with kids would be "too busy" and "wouldn't have anything to talk about," which was unfair in every case. It also assumed that there was nothing interesting about talking about kids, and I don't think that's true at all. (Of course, I also find talking to many kids interesting, so I may not be a good gauge.)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

It's tough when you're the first in your peer group to have kids. Non-kid people tend to glaze over when you start talking about children. But if you wait, many of the most hardened career women will start eating crow by the time they are 39. Of those who stay faithful to the last, and finish out menopause without reproducing, you usually find them much mellowed. A good solution to yhlee's problem is to connect with other young families with similarly aged children. Necessarily, when you have a small tot, you are just not going to have a social life anyway. It helps to have friends who understand this, who can end a phone call in mid-sentence, or who can find time to hang out in the mall on an afternoon rather than a bar on Friday night. It's a tough adjustment, but she'll get the last laugh when her friends go through it.

Honestly, I think the mythology about mothers not having "identities" is a way to find fault with an otherwise happy, nuclear family that threatens the feminist agenda of characterizing traditional women's roles as suffocating and downright unhealthy. Sure, they look happy. They love each other. The children are well adjusted. But mom is paying a horrible psychic price. Blah blah blah. I'm looking forward a feminism that can encompass all the choices that a woman (or a man) might make in their life.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Things are not quite that simple for yhlee's specific situation, but yes, finding other people who spend their days with kids and want to talk about books would be a very good thing.

As I said in response to palinade's comment, I think the fact that my mother had choices in her life and chose to prioritize being my mom for some of the time made all the difference in the world for her. I don't know a feminist who disagrees with that. I feel sure that some are out there, but I don't think you'll find them on my friendslist. The difference between traditional roles and enforced traditional roles is substantial.

[astromachy.livejournal.com]

That's a beautiful post. You made me think and feel so many things, and I can't articulate any of them properly - just, yes.
I'm not a mother, but I am an eldest child, and my sister and I interact in such different ways with our mother that it makes it clear that it must be a different experience for her to be a mother in relation to each of us.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

"that you should respect and love things that are different"

And this is why I love to read the things you write. Thank you.

Mack

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks!