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A L S O_ T O D A Y - - - - - - - - - - E D I T O R ' S_N O T E Look for excerpts from Anne Lamott's new book, "Traveling Mercies," on Fridays; Word by Word, Lamott's biweekly Thursday column, will return March 4. - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E_T A L K Are your children learning about judicial process through "AllyMcBeal"? Talk about the influence of TV on kids in the Mothers area of ___________________ Search barnesandnoble.comfor books about parenting and the family R E C E N T L Y Momcat Girly girl Better ead than uck The bento chronicles Great expectations BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - Mamafesto
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| RAGING HORMONES | PAGE 1, 2 The trickiest part of having a chemical imbalance, menopausal or otherwise, isthat your ability to assess the appropriateness of your outsize reactionsdiminishes, especially if there's stuff in your life that's giving youtangible cause for concern. (And when is there not?) I mean, I'd noticedthat my fuse seemed a bit shorter than usual, but I attributed it to stressover Will's difficulties at school. I'd experienced a few wacko hormonal moments all through the fertile years ofmy life. I remember once during the first trimester ofmy pregnancy with Will having to pull over to the side of the road because "We Are the World" came onthe car radio, and the thought of all those children starving made me cry sohard I couldn't drive. But this menopause thing was more akin to PMS on acid. I didn't just feelweepy, I felt like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining." In addition to my mental roller coaster, there was fatigue -- not the kind of tiredness to which most I Can Do It All mothers are prone. This was an exhaustion that leaves you feelingcapable of little more than sitting in a rocking chair and making smallchewing noises with your mouth. It's uncomfortable being a teenager under the best of circumstances. Butwhen your main source of parental security seems in need of a 72-hour psychhold, it's a lot worse. Will grappled for emotional purchase the only way heknew how: He acted out. One night he punched a hole the size of an apple inhis bedroom wall. Mostly he slammed doors and shouted variations on the themeof "I hate you! I hate my life! I hate my life because of you!" As his distress grew deeper, mine increased in equal measure, until I wasout of my mind with worry about him. I could see that the storm bearing downon my son drew wind from previous storms, mainly the death of his grandfatherand the catastrophic illness of his father. I also knew his run-of-the-millteen rebellion was complicated by the fact that, as the single child of asingle parent, he had only me to alternately reject and cling to for refuge.But now his storm had quickened my own, and back and forth it blew between usin woeful reciprocity. We had become twinned tuning forks of unhappiness, each resonating to the other's agitation. Except that I was theadult, the caretaker, the one in charge of keeping this child safe and soundthrough his adolescent passage. And I knew I was doing a damned lousy job of it. One desperate Friday afternoon, after yetanother homework meltdown, I considered sending him away to military school.By Saturday, I wanted to send myself away to military school instead. It all reached critical mass on an April morning when Will dawdled more than usual as he got dressed for school andnearly missed the bus. We successfully chased it down the street in our carand Will was able to get on at the next stop, but as I watched the school busdisappear with my kid securely onboard, I began tosob hysterically, convinced that his lateness was incontrovertible evidence ofmy abject failure as a mother. It actually occurred to me that he might bebetter off without me. Later in the day, I peered out from the murk of my hormone-fraught haze enoughto comprehend I was in trouble. I called my doctor for anappointment. Dr. Roberta Smith is a very smart internist who specializes in midlife women. "Well, what brings you here today?" she asked chirpily. "My kid's 12 and I feel psychotic," I replied. "Hmmmm," she murmured. "I think we'd better check your hormones." Two dayslater, she called me with the lab results. "Your estrogen levels are in thetoilet. Do you prefer Estradiol or Premarin, or would you like to try thepatch?" "All of the above," I said. I'd already tried yam cream and everything soy and look where it got me. Now I just wanted the drugs. It took a month and a half of fiddling with the dosagesbefore I was able to discern a substantial difference. But by June, it was asif someone had waved a magic wand over my psyche. No more hot flashes. Islept normally. My energy returned. Both my fangs and my despair receded. Ino longer wanted to send either Will or myself to military school. Yet damage had been done -- to my son and to my relationship with him. Sowhile I waited for the estrogen to kick in, I marched both of us to therapistsand listened quietly while Will told each of them --- his and mine -- in minuteand excruciating detail all the ways I was a terrible, horrible, no good verybad mother. As we left the last office, he glanced at me to gauge my reactionto what he'd said. The truth is that his verbal spewing left me gasping withanguish, but I said only, "I'm glad you were so honest." Then I watched asthe knots of strain that had pinched his face for months began gradually tountie themselves. In August we flew to Montana for three weeks of mom-and-kidhealing on horseback and along trout streams in the Rocky Mountains. It was a trip I could barely afford -- and well worth it. Now Will is in the seventh grade, and both his study habits and his generaloutlook on life have progressed to the point that I've agreed, God help me, ifhe gets A's and B's this semester, he can dye his hair the same color asMarilyn Manson's. These recent improvements of his are due in part, I think,to the fact that he's a year older and more experienced at organizing histime. And the extra year has also made him marginally better able to ride hishormonal fluctuations, not fight them. However, the primary reason we have nonew holes in our walls is that the mother of thefamily is sane again. There was nothing fun about the storm my son and I came throughtogether. Moreover, in the middle of it, you could say, I lost hold of thetiller. Will saw me do it. But then I recovered the tiller again with a graspthat was, in some ways, firmer than before. He saw this too. I believe -- OK, I hope -- that the loss and recovery he witnessed willcount for something. When you're a kid, you think loss is the end of theworld, and when things go wrong, nothing will ever be right again. At least this time I could show him that with faith plus effort, some losses can be turned into unexpected gains. Last week, I took it into my head to read Will most of this article, skippingover only the very saddest parts. At first I worried that my writerlyblurtings might alarm him. Instead he looked oddly relieved that I'd exposedour foibles to the open air. He giggled at the funny places, then launchedinto a comic imitation of the pre-Estradiol me. "Oh my GOD!!!!! You threw thegum wrapper at the wastebasket and you missed and now it's on the floo-o-o-o-orrrrr!!!!! Oh my GOD!!!! You drank a Sprite and didn't recycle the CAN!!!!"A pause. "You were really like that, Mom." Another pause. "Hey, I know moreabout menopause than my cousin does, and she's 18, really smart and agirl. Now that's scary." "Oh, well," I shrugged. "Oh, well," he agreed, and for the briefest of moments the boy-child's grinwas laced with something remarkably akin to compassion -- not just for me, butfor himself. Celeste Fremon is an award-winning journalist and the author of "Father Greg & the Homeboys" (Hyperion). Her piece "Boys Without Men" will appear in "Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood," edited by Camille Peri and Kate Moses, which is forthcoming from Villard Books in May. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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