Old people say it. They’ve always said it. It’s the sort of thing you hear along with “What’s this world coming to?” And. “When I was a kid…”
I was talking about our children’s parenting approaches with a friend last night. About her daughter’s patient instructions, inquiries, guidance of her 2-year-old. About the little fellow’s incredible ability to identify his feelings and, as he grows, his ideas and opinions.
And about my daughter’s let’s-get-things done, did-you-brush-your-teeth, sometimes not-so-patient, approach to her two adolescent, high-energy, talented, physical boys.
Our daughters have one thing in common. The same thing they have in common with us. Their children are their lives.
Despite the cultural shift that convinced women that their primary identity was not motherhood. That they needed a career. That they needed to put themselves first. That they needed to find their own sense of self, separate from their children. Despite all those incredibly important considerations. Here we are. Talking about our two daughters. Both with high-end career jobs. Both with different ways of mothering. Both dedicating an enormous part of their lives (it might be fair to say their whole lives) to their children.
Because that’s what we do. That’s what mothers do. For better. Some of us have wonderful lives with our children. For worse. Some of us have a constant struggle. But whichever is our path we all share a common truth. Once our bodies make another body. That’s it. We are in it for life. It’s us and them. These days. Our days. Our parents’ days.
If anything, our days were easier. If anything, we didn’t make such a conscious effort to parent correctly. If anything, parents these days are required to try harder, think deeper and give up more than us.
I can’t see what’s ahead for my grandchildren. I thought I knew what was best in the past. I am sure I don’t know what will be best in the future. But I know what’s ahead will be their’s to create. I also know that pretty much every grandmother I know has pretty wonderful grandchildren and that while, at this moment, the future looks bleak there is a hoard of young people with skills and understandings we haven’t thought of yet.
I am also getting the sense that many of us baby-boomers, who tried to create some separation between being woman and being mother, are learning that the best approach is not limiting, compartmentalizing and separating our ‘parts’ but by embracing our whole. By giving it all we’ve got.
I’ve been thinking back to my experience of delivering my first baby. It was a nasty birth. All births are nasty. Incredibly nasty. There is nothing beautiful about natural childbirth in our country-garden, ocean-view, highfashion western sense of beauty. I was 20 years old. My mother hadn’t taught me about childbirth. I had done no prenatal prep classes. I knew instinctively that the giant mound in my belly had to come out through what I knew to be a very small hole. The doctor had given me the medical explanations. So, I knew that. He also told me that he thought my baby was going to be at least 9 pounds. I also knew that was a lot.
During labour I knew one other thing. I did not have the option to lose it. I could scream. I could cry. I could have sworn, although I didn’t swear at the time. But I couldn’t lose it. That was not an option. This motherhood thing meant I had no choice but to pull it together. For the baby. But also. For me. There was no conceivable way that I could jump off that bed and run away from what was happening. Some of our babies die. One of mine did. Some of us, for many reasons, give our babies away. But the one thing we all have in common is that those babies are ours, in one way or another for life. There is no way out.
Those of us with natural childbirth experiences remember being told to bear down. Okay, Sylvia, bear down. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but my body told me to hold my breath and give ‘er.
It starts there. And it doesn’t end. We bear down.
