My children and I have agreed on a trial separation. We are all of us very familiar with the steps toward mending or abandoning a broken relationship, and we proceed in order. It doesn't matter, for the sake of this exercise, the nature of the presenting issue; it doesn't even matter what each of them has to endure for his/her own growth process (since I can't do anything about it), and the less I know about what they might be going through (or not!), the better off we all are.
And THAT'S because I am retiring as Mother. I know, I know, I should have retired long since; all but the baby are in their40's, for God's sake, and the baby is racing towards that milestone herself. I should have abandoned them to their own resources years ago. The problem is that today, this morning, I'm not so sure I ever really fit the MotherMold as generally thought of, so it's possible that I have to paw through all the detritus of this dynamic even to figure out what I'm leaving behind.
I've pretty much been making up Motherhood from the start, since I have no younger siblings and therefore could not follow my own mother's excellent model for how to love them, civilize them and not kill them (or myself -- a distinct and frequently-occurring possibility) in the process. Their father, whose mother died tragically when he was fourteen, didn't have a model either, except for his own father, whom he chose not to emulate except when on automatic pilot, and that emulation was unhearing, uncaring and often brutal. Furthermore, any rule books we might have studied for help were cast away -- if not burned along with the bras -- in the sixties and seventies, so the old standards were not only not followed, they were to be eschewed. That left us -- all parents, single or not -- on our own, and most of us had relocated far far away from our extended families, who could have helped with all the gratuitous advice we so hated when living in each others' pockets. Cruel irony, that.
By the evidence at hand, I've done okay Mothering my kids: none of them is on drugs, none has been arrested (well there was that time when one of them slugged a neighbor, but the neighbor richly deserved it, so I'm not counting that; oh, and those little shoplifting peccadilloes during a troubled adolescence -- let's not count that either); they all graduated from college, they are all employed and functioning, even contributing, members of society; and three of the four are in therapy. (Wait, is that a good or a bad indicator of the quality of their Mothering? That has got to be a whole 'nother blog....) Two have divorced (and paid the price for it, so it's a good if painful thing); they enjoy each other's company, finally, and are even sweet and generous and careful of each other; they're all really funny, which has saved them (and will again) in hard and scary times.
So, my ad hoc method of Mothering has worked as far as my obligations to society are concerned, i.e., once having given birth to the little savages, I managed to civilize them. They may even have civilized themselves, but at the very least I didn't muddy the process with, say, alcoholism or addiction to smack, that sort of thing.
Okay, so I fit the MotherMold in terms of results, but not so much in terms of throwing myself whole-heartedly, selflessly, even gratefully, into the job of Child-Rearing. Not having any rules, and embarking on Motherhood at the age of 19, I never knew if I was measuring up, or if the kids were, for that matter, until each was safely launched. I never learned how to play with them, for example; their father did that (thank God), by wrestling and shooting hoops and taking hikes, etc. I felt too painfully the onus of taking care of business, like the laundry or the cooking or the nursing or the bathing or the shopping or the education, all of it for four children, and I always felt I came up short. It was a JOB, and one I never felt I was very good at, therefore I didn't feel I could take the time or energy to enjoy it, even if I knew what that meant, since I was always having to buckle down.
ANYWAY, I know I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm damned if I know what they were, and I've been too guilt-ridden to ask any of the kids. I do know that I worked hard and constantly to get it right, I never didn't do the best I knew how. Since the children have grown and gone, I have connected with them mostly from a position of sorrysorrysorry, craven and crawling, begging for crumbs of attention. My God, we do teach people how to treat us, and my reward has been entirely appropriate to what I thought I deserved.
Gotta change that, gotta find a new way to connect -- or choose not to -- with my kids. In 1989 I was driven to figure out how to live my life in full without a live-in male; it took years, but I figured it out, and have even come to enjoy the company of men again. I'm hoping this cursillo won't take as long to learn; I'm running out of time.
It seems obvious that, if I'm no longer the Mother of my kids, then we have to determine if there's any OTHER reason to sustain a relationship. That will have to happen with each one of them, with different criteria, 'cause if I'm not Mothering then I no longer have to treat them equally, right? Of course right.
- One of them might love me, but there's more a sense of obligation to me than love freely given; I like that kid, but we've never hung out with the same lack of expectation that I have with my closest friends.
- One of them has never really connected with me -- all our contact has either been out of obligation -- weddings, graduations, etc., or at my insistence, or because something was needed from me, like a free night's room and board in Atlanta on the way back from an exotic island; that couple came and went in the dark, so a relationship with me probably wouldn't survive the cold light of day.
- One of my kids can barely control active and visceral loathing for me -- in fact doesn't bother controlling it most of the time; I don't hold out much hope for a connection there.
- And the other kid I've come to love in a very clear and accepting way, probably because we had The Talk years ago, and because I tried to help during a very painful divorce. I think we enjoy each other's company; I have the most optimism for this one, even though I caused pain in the last presenting episode. I've been forgiven before, and I hope to be again.
No comments:
Post a Comment