Children won’t save a marriage, but they might fix your relationship with your mother.
An essay on love and fear and mothering in between.
“I hope you know what this means.”
These are foreboding words. Almost any time you say them, the other person knows what they mean.
Bringing my mom to tour a university thousands of miles from home, we both knew what it would mean.
“You won’t see me at all. I hope you like not seeing me anymore.”
We lived in New Jersey, just the two of us. Although my dad made a guest appearance for this very important trip—my second visit to the university thousands of miles from home—it was always just the two of us. My parents divorced years earlier just as my bat mitzvah checks were cashed. So we navigated our lives together, a marriage of our own.
She wasn’t wrong to think I was running. I knew what the optics of my decision looked like to everyone around us. But space didn’t feel like a choice to me after five years of rallying to piece her back together. Five years of meeting everyone’s expectations that I was her first line of defense, her support system, her other half. Truth is, a child changes when she parents her parent. Shouldering adult burdens to fill the void of an adult relationship comes with these consequences. It’s a theme underlying all that happens. A haze that sits atop the dialogue, coloring everything we say.
But when I did move to the university thousands of miles away, we still saw each other. Of course we did. We furnished my first apartment in Target’s finest linens and screamed at the top of our lungs at SEC football games. We slept in my bed. She made breakfast for my roommates. And in my stuffed ’99 Altima, we drove straight from college to New York City so I could start law school.
My mom showed up. She always did.
Yet, my life was a mirror, a reflection back onto her own perceived misfortunes. The more I reached, the more troubled by it she seemed, as if the choices I was making were in spite of her—to not be like her. To be like him. I was a snob for my New York City lifestyle, while she spoke so nobly of her friends’ children living at home, even the ones we knew were in bad shape. A young woman does not choose one parent to resemble. They produced me together, just one end result; but she couldn’t acknowledge that history without reliving its worst.
We were reaching a point where there was nothing left to say.
Until my water broke.
My water spilled, in fact, onto our bathroom floor. Thirty-five weeks into protecting someone other than myself, and I couldn’t hold up my end of the bargain to keep my daughter in. That is what it felt like after giving birth for the first time. Three nights later, Mt. Sinai discarded us onto a busy and dark Upper Manhattan street. My husband and I hurried her into my mom’s sedan circling the block. We inched cautiously in the bus lane back to our apartment.
Nothing felt right. Our tiny kitchen-bedroom was still filled with unpacked boxes, an unmade crib, and unwashed clothes, which were too big for a four-and-a-half pound baby. The clothes were too big. The room was too small. She was too small yet somehow the room was also too small.
My mom made the sofa bed and pulled the stroller up next to us in the living room. We slept here on her first night home, me tending to my daughter’s every hiccup, unsure of what to do. My mom laid next to me, holding my hand, letting me cry until sunrise.
I thought a lot about us during my postpartum haze, when I was afraid to care for my newborn as if anything could break her.
Love and fear can be too close to distinguish between.
We can love someone beyond a point where our conduct makes sense. My mom’s feelings about my life were not a referendum on me but were rooted in fears for her only child, which usurped all reason. In my first months as a mother, I understood this better than ever.
For my daughter, she rose to the occasion, always showing up with our diapers and Carter’s onesies. We troubleshooted her transitions to the next size bottles and diagnosed her with gas before the pediatrician did. After spending weekends at our place, she would let me know the next time she’d be back as she walked out the door. I needed to hear it, in the same way she needed to feel a sense of belonging that I hadn’t been able to give her in years.
We all want to belong to someone. It’s not always easy to see that.
I have two daughters now. They are not a mirror to her—they are a door. The thrill of being a grandmother allows her to travel to the past, revisiting the early years of motherhood she loved so much. Instead of looking at me and seeing someone she doesn’t recognize, she looks at my daughters and can see me again. Through the silliness and play and milestones she shares with the girls, I see her again, too.
Some say that children can’t fix marriages. And as a product of a marriage I could not fix, I can confirm. But children can save your relationship with your mother. Of course, she may not always appreciate what I do or say (or write). But with our mutual purpose, we experience a new joy that moves us forward, joy that is inextricably linked to one another. A mother, her daughter, and her daughter’s daughters. A new union for us all.
Happy Mother’s Day to Robin, the Woman Sometimes Known as Mom But Mostly Known as Rah-Rah now. We all love you very much.
Have you grown closer to your mom after having kids? I’ve love to hear your stories: averagejoelle3@gmail.com.
The ways we win
My plan for this newsletter was to share hundreds of your wins. I imagined I’d use them to form some sort of digital art, a collective visual of how even the smallest wins compound to form more meaningful triumphs for us. But that’s not what happened.
A few trickled into my inbox. I received a couple DMs. I bugged several of you directly, but the submission rate fell flat. I was a little disappointed, mostly in myself for not making the effort to promote this campaign the way I envisioned. A potential business opportunity warranted most of my attention over the past month, so I went all-in on positioning it. My win was making that decision and accepting the outcome without getting too down on myself. I threw out the ruler.
The wins I did receive, though, aren’t tiny at all. I’m posting some of them above. As you can see, they don’t need my beginner’s graphic design skills to illustrate the physical, emotional, professional, and spiritual work that went into them. They carry their own weight. They’re heavy. And I’m humbled these women were willing to share them with me.
Also
I read:
Moms Gone Wild - The Cut
Five Hours With The Man Behind The Best Drama on Reality TV - Bustle
My Beautiful Mom - The Cut
The New Frugal - Saveur