Beautiful, but Strange 5/14/2023

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Considering the day at hand, since today we, in America at least, celebrate our mothers, I came to a conclusion.  Motherhood is a strange thing. It is full of mysteries and oddities that I am not sure I can find anywhere else. This probably isn’t the angle you were expecting today. Then again, maybe you weren’t expecting any angle. As of late, calling what I may bring to the table here unpredictable is a bit of an understatement. I do realize that I have run the full gamut from serious and meaningful to talking about crowns and children’s sports.  So maybe you weren’t even sure if I was going to tackle Mother’s Day. To be honest, I wasn’t sure myself. But a few thoughts came to mind so, I thought I’d give it a go.  Hopefully it won’t be something typical. Not that the commonly occurring this time of year heartfelt maternal tributes are not glorious, but now I’ve set a precedent for bringing you the not-so-average and who am I to go against precedent?

I have always been a relatively sound sleeper I suppose. Though I am the type of person that needs some sort of background noise to be able to sleep because if I don’t have something to distract my ears, they will attune themselves to every pop and creak that a house makes by simply existing, and I will be alarmed at every single one of them. I am not particularly easily frightened but I am prone to nightmares and have an unnecessarily active imagination so any little sound will send my mind off into all sorts of shenanigans.  So, I like to have either a TV going or some music playing or something of that nature, so I don’t have to wrangle my thoughts whilst trying to rest.  However, as a mother, I find it fascinating as to how I can sleep through a thunderstorm of very severe proportions, but if my daughter coughs, or even rustles in the covers too much I am suddenly magically awake.  Just judging by decibels, that really doesn’t seem to make much sense but something about knowing there is something important that I need to hear, somehow my brain can scrape up enough consciousness to actually hear that and only that.  It is almost as if the brain to ear connection somehow gains superpowers when one becomes a mother because I have heard tell of other mothers in the same boat.  Of all the things that would develop, can’t say I saw nighttime hearing of steel being on the list.

Then there is a little something that I am not exactly sure what name to give. If you have ever been a parent, even a pet parent you probably will know exactly what I am referring to when I find a way to describe it. I guess the best way to do so would be to call it the scared-angry. And by that moniker I mean, when the child, be it furry or not, does something that so badly scares you, usually risking their own well-being, that you become immediately irate once the fear is removed. I think you know what I mean but if not, let me give you an example.  Recently I was going to take a shower and it was just myself and my daughter at my house.  I told my daughter what I was going to do and if she needed me to just come in the bathroom and get me.  Well apparently, though I insisted she acknowledge my instructions, she apparently “forgot” where I was while I was gone. I had just begun my shower and the phone rang and as I was expecting a call, I actually got out to answer it.  When I went to tell my dear child that the call was from my mother, and she would be stopping by shortly (so as not have her have a stroke at someone knocking on the door) she was nowhere to be found. I called her name. Nothing. I walked all around the house calling her because there are nooks and crannies in our home that are surprisingly soundproof. Still no response. I open the back door calling her name as the panic lump is rising in my throat. The flashes of all manner of horror that began to flicker through my mind were growing more and more intense. Luckily, she was quick to answer as she was right out on the back patio supposedly looking for me because she “forgot” where I was.  So, all my fears were assuaged however, then I became livid. She had not listened plus wandered out of the house which she absolutely should not have done alone. But the fear of the what ifs made the anger far worse.  I’ve seen this with my mother or even with someone who has a dog who gets too close to the street and does not come when called. You are terrified then the second the terror is calmed; overwhelmed with anger. You want to cradle your child in a grateful embrace and also knock some sense into them simultaneously. It’s a fascinating pairing of intense emotion.  You should probably be feeling joy, but it seems that rage is the only thing that can follow that type of fear for a frightened parent. It’s an odd reaction but I know it is prevalent in most parents I’ve seen.

We won’t even get into that uncomfortable moment when you see your child exhibiting traits that you yourself have. Often it is those qualities that you find can cause you frustration from time to time or that have been known to get you into less-than-ideal situations. When my daughter informs me of her skill in sarcasm I could only sigh. She came by it honestly as it was passed, and at an expert level might I add, to me from my own mother.  Unfortunately, she occasionally attempts to use it on me, and I have that awkward situation as to whether I should scold her for her tone with me or wondering if that would be hypocritical because I am pretty certain that she got the idea for her remark from me.  What a tangled web I have woven! She even tells me that she is good at, as she calls it “being a sarcasm” and she is not wrong. Surely that is even more dangerous than her just being sarcastic, is her being aware of her talent in being as much.  But what can I do?  I must try to keep her attitude in line and respectful, but I also am torn wanting to burst with pride at some of her more dripping wit.  I walk a fine line.

So, beyond the overwhelming love brought by children there is strangeness.  You’re all hugs and affection one minute the next you’re furrowing your brow at some unexpected bit of weirdness that has arisen.  Motherhood is the most perplexing and rewarding job a woman can have.  It is hard to fathom all that the task entails truly. You know it will be hard to watch them grow from the precious little stages and you do realize that the teenage years will be full of the drama of attempted independence.  But there is not much that can prepare you for having to convince a child that despite the fact that a company has redesigned its packaging, that the snack cake within is still in fact the same thing that they had always eaten and not some heinous imposter.  Nor can one be trained on how to explain that though one’s father was in the military, and I did just point out a military location, that doesn’t in fact mean that one’s father (who is in his early 40’s) did in fact fight around said military site which was from the Civil War. These are the conversations and the education that you don’t know you’ll be participating in when you bring a child into the world. Love and joy are understood but the weirdness, that’s just an unexpected blessing.