Good enough
posted in Uncategorized |There are times OmegaMom sits paralyzed, wondering just how badly she is screwing up OmegaDotter.
Did I shout too loud? Was I mean? Am I ignoring her? Am I lavishing too much attention on her? Should I stop making her take “just one bite of everything”? Should I start making her “clean her plate”? Did I scare her by slamming the door? Should she have an earlier bedtime? Would it be better to dose her up with cold medicine so she doesn’t snore at night? Am I giving her too much medicine? Are we too strict? Are we strict enough?
I have a temper that flares fast and sudden, then dies down and disappears as quickly as it comes. There are times when the dotter is dawdling so…very…slowly…getting…dressed…in…the…morning that I just grit my teeth and shriek through them, then yank her nightshirt off over her head and her t-shirt on instead, all the while lecturing her about how she knows what the routine is every morning, and why does she have to dawdle and yadda yadda yadda. I’m sure what gets through are two things: mommy’s grumpy and “Waaa wa-wah wahhhhhh,” just like in the Charlie Brown movies. And then I feel guilty and miserable, and am sure I’m screwing her up.
But then I read about someone who cuts off her newly adopted child’s ear because he’s not saying his prayers in English.
Or I read the story of A Child Called “It”, whose mother went nuts one year and ever afterwards made him the scapegoat for all her moods, beating him, tying him naked in the basement in the winter, refusing to let him eat.
Or I read stories about babies whose parents leave them in their pee-soaked and poop-filled diapers day after day, so that their little bottoms are not just suffering from diaper rash, but raw and festering wounds that take weeks to heal.
Parents who put their cigarettes out in their toddler’s fleshy skin because “I just don’t like boys.”
Men who rape babies and have the gall to say, “She wanted it. She was sexin’ on me!”.
And it just appalls me. Flabbergasts me. How, I wonder. How could someone–? How could you–?
Then there are the parents who don’t actively abuse their children, but passively neglect them. No reading in bed. No dress-up. No games. No playing. Kids who show up at their first kindergarten class and don’t know their colors or their shapes or how to sing or how to blow bubbles or that it’s okay to have fun (but do know how to dress themselves…). And it makes me wonder–why? Why have children, then?
Or stories that I hear from friends, of parents who regularly told them they were shit, worthless, useless, stupid, ugly. And I am amazed that they have come through that with any sort of feeling that they are good and worthwhile human beings.
When I hear or read these stories, my grumpy, “Dotter! If you do not get your foot off the book right now, I am going to stop reading to you, close the book, turn off the lights, and we are going to go to sleep!” seems caring. My “Dotter, you have to clear your plate and placemat and napkin off the dinner table” seems as if we are just taking the time to ensure that she learns a few family graces. My horror at these stories sets me apart (I hope!) from the “No more wire hangers!” Mommy Dearest that I am sometimes fearful of becoming.
Oh, I am no saint, far from it; as I said, I lose my temper and storm and rage and flounce around and slam doors–providing a horrid example for the Dotter. But I will treasure every time she pouts and tells me or OmegaDad, “You’re not my friend!” because it means she trusts us enough to know she can say something like that, rather than cowering in her room in fear of…yet another beating, yet another burn, yet another night of being told you’re too worthless to be fed.
Love for your child shows up in a myriad ways: Putting extra bandaids on, reading stories, piling in a sleepy heap on the sofa and watching movies, making sure they take their vitamins, even in something so mundane and obvious as changing diapers or cleaning up the vomit when they’re sick. My dotter may not have a cushy preschool leading to a cushy private grammar school leading to a prestigious high school leading to an Ivy League university…but she has parents who care enough to chase her with Tickle Fingers and play horsie and teach her to ride a bicycle. And that’s Good Enough.
