D R A M A_ Q U E E N

This won't hurt a bit! Ever been brought to tears while lying on your back with your legs open in front of a strange doctor? Share your tales of gynecological woe in Drama Queen for a Day contest.

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T A B L E++T A L K

How much money to teens need for clothes? Discuss fashion allowances in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

The mother of all elections
By Lori Leibovich
Can the favorite daughter of the Christian right knock off the feminist senator in tennis shoes?
(10/28/98)

Circumcision in America, Part 2
By Debra S. Ollivier
Despite medical and religious debunking, long-standing cultural biases keep the practice of circumcision alive
(10/27/98)

Circumcision in America
By Debra S. Ollivier
How did a medically pointless procedure become a routine practice performed on a majority of American males?
(10/26/98)

Citizens of the world, turn on your televisions!
By Sallie Tisdale
TV opened up my world. Really
(10/22/98)

Mommy's little accessory
By Dayna Macy
Jo Copeland designed glamorous couture clothes for the rich and famous. But while she was an extraordinary designer, she was a disaster as a mother
(10/21/98)

BROWSE THE WORD BY WORD ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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Salon Columnists

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MOTHER RAGE: THEORY AND PRACTICE | PAGE 1, 2
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This is how Sam told me about his school day while I was trying to watch the news last night: "So David says she didn't draw it and then she goes like, she did draw the picture herself, and then he goes like, 'Oh yeah,' and then she goes like, 'Yeah, I asked her to but she said I had to,' and then she goes like, 'Oh, yeah, riiiight,' then I go ..."

I am not an ageist: If Jesus wanted to tell me in great detail how he runs the 50-yard dash while I was watching the news, I'd be annoyed with Him too: "See, most kids start out like this -- the first step is a big one, like this -- no, watch -- and then the second is smaller, like this, and the next -- NO, WATCH, I'm almost done -- so see, what I do is, I start like everyone else -- WATCH -- but then my third step is like small, and the next one is bigger, so like, this P.E. teacher who sees me do it goes, 'Whoa, Lord, cool,' and then she goes ..."

Before we go on, I want to say that people who didn't want children just roll their eyes when you complain, because they think you brought this on yourself. Comedian Rita Rudner once said that she and her husband were trying to decide whether to buy a dog or have a child -- whether to ruin their carpets, or their lives. So people without children tend not to feel very sympathetic. But some of us wanted children -- and what they give is so rich, you can hardly bear it.

At the same time, if you need to yell, children are going to give you something to yell about. There's no reasoning with them. If you get into a disagreement with a regular person, you slog through it; listen to the other person's position, needs, problems; and somehow you arrive at something that is maybe not perfect, but you don't actually feel like smacking them. But because we are so tired sometimes, when a disagreement starts with our child, we can only flail miserably through time and space and the holes in between; and then we blow our top. Say, for instance, that your child is 4 and going through the stage when he will only wear the T-shirt with the tiger on it. With a colleague who was hoping you'd come through with the professional equivalent of washing their tiger T-shirt every night, you might be able to explain to them that you were up until dawn on deadline, or you've got a fever, and so did not get to the laundry. And the colleague might cut you some slack and try to understand that you simply hadn't had time to wash the tiger shirt, and besides, they've worn it now four days in a row. But your child is apt to -- well, let's say, apt to not.

They can be like rats. I mean this in the nicest possible way. But they may still be drooling, covered with effluvia, trying to wrestle underpants on over their heads because they think they're shirts, but in the miniature war room of their heads, they still know where your nuclear button is. They may ignore you, or seem troubled by hearing loss, or erupt in fury at you or weep, but in any case, they're so unreasonable and capable of such meanness that you're stunned and grief-stricken about how much harder it is than you could have imagined. All you're aware of is the big windy gap between you, your lack of anything left to give, any solution whatsoever.

Friends without children point out the good news: that kids haven't, thank God, taken all their impulses and learned to disguise them subtly. Maybe what kids want and when they want it is in your face, they'll say, but still, it's wonderful for people to be who they really are. And you can only say, "Thank you so much for sharing." Because it's not wonderful when kids ignore you, or are being sassy and oppositional. It's not wonderful when you're coping well enough, feeding them, helping them get ready, trying to get them to do something in their best interests -- like "Zip up the pants, honey, that's not a great look for you" -- and then, under the rubric of What Fresh Hell Is This?, the play date for the afternoon calls and cancels, and then there's total despair and hysteria because your child is going to have to hang out here alone with YOU, horrible you, and he's sobbing like the dog has died, and you're thinking, "What about all those times this week when I DID arrange play dates? Do I get any FUCKING credit for that?" And it happens. KABOOOOM.

It's so ugly and scary for everyone concerned that -- well. One of my best friends, the gentlest person I know, once tore the head off his daughter's doll. And then threw it to her, like a baseball pitch. And I love that in a guy, or at least I love that he told me about it when I was in despair about a recent rage at Sam. Because, while I'm not sure what the solution is, I know that what doesn't help is the terrible feeling of isolation, the fear that everyone else is doing better.

Of course, it helps if you can catch yourself before you blow up, if you give one of you a timeout. I'm sure it helps to have a spouse, and it also helps when people tell you their own terrible stories of blowing up, so you can laugh about it: At one of my lowest points, a friend -- a teacher -- told me that she looks at her child and thinks, "I gave you life. So if I kill you, it's a wash."

What has helped recently was figuring out that when we blow up at our kids, we only think we're going from 0 to 60 in one second. Our surface and persona is so calm that when the problem first begins, we sound in control when we say, "Now, honey, stop that," or "That's enough." But it's only an illusion. Because actually, all day we've been nursing anger toward the boss or boyfriend or mother, but because we can't get mad at nonkid people, we stuff it down; we keep going without blowing up because we don't want to lose our jobs or partners or reputations. So when the problem with your kid starts up, you're actually starting at 59, only you're not moving. You're at high idle already, but you are not even aware of how vulnerable and disrespected you already feel. It's your child's bedtime and all you want from Jesus or Baruch Hashem is for He/She/It to help your children go to sleep so you can lie down and stare at the TV -- and it starts up. "Mama, I need to talk to you. It's important." So you go in and you muster patience, and you help them with their fears or their thirst, and you go back to the living room and sink down into your couch, and then you hear, "Mama? Please come here one more time." You lumber in like you're dragging a big dinosaur tail behind you and you rub their back for a minute, their sharp angel shoulder blades. But the third time they call for you, you try to talk them out of needing you, only they seem to have this tiny problem with self-absorption, and they can't hear that you can't be there for them. And you become wordless with rage. You try to breathe, you try everything, and then you blow. You scream, "God fucking damnit! WHAT! WHAT? Can't you leave me alone for FOUR seconds?"

Now your child feels much safer, more likely to drift off to sleep.

Good therapy helps. Good friends help. Pretending that we are doing better than we are doesn't. Shame doesn't. Being heard does.

When I talk about it, I don't feel so afraid. The fear is the worst part, the fear about who you secretly think you are, the fear you see in your child's eyes. But underneath the fear I keep finding resiliency, forgiveness, even grace. The third time Sam called for me the other night, and I finally blew up in the living room, there was a great silence in the house, silence like suspended animation: Here I'd been praying for silence, and then it turns out to be so charged and toxic. I lay on the couch with my hands over my face, just shocked by how hard it is to be a parent. And after a minute Sam sidled out into the living room because he still needed to see me, he needed to snuggle with me, with mean me, he needed to find me -- like the baby spider pushing in through the furry black legs of the mother tarantula, knowing she's in there somewhere.
SALON | Oct. 29, 1998