Terrible Mother

Semantics

A few months ago, in the car, where all pertinent conversation in our family takes place, Thing One and Thing Two had this exchange:

"I would like to see Eight-Finger Jon again so I can play with his dog," said Thing Two.

"You can't call him Eight-Finger Jon anymore," said Thing One.

"Why not?"

"Because now he doesn't have eight fingers. He only has FIVE."

"So I can call him Five-Finger Jon?"

"Well, he has metal fingers now."

"I thought he had a hook."

"Mom," Thing One called up to the front seat, "does Jon have fingers or a hook?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe he has both."

"Well," said Thing Two, "we could call him 10-finger Jon if he has metal fingers."

"That's stupid," said Thing One. "Having 10 fingers is normal so why would you make a whole name out of it?"

"It is not normal to have 5 metal fingers and 5 normal fingers!"

"But no one can tell from the name it isn't normal."

This conversation lasted for approximately 7 more minutes, and resulted in much arguing, and no new nickname for Jon until I said "What about Bionic Jon?"

They loved this (a name Fort Awesome thought up a long time ago), with only Thing One adding "Well, I don't know how bionic he really is, but okay."

Somehow, I think Jon would have loved listening to this conversation.

*tm

Single Mothers' Mother's Day

Reasons It Is Better to Be Single on Mother’s Day as Opposed to Married, Partnered, or Otherwise Juxtaposed with A Man*:

Reason 1: No sentiments printed on over-flowered card stock celebrating your gentle spirit, ability to wash laundry and cook dinner, or the fact you’ve procreated.

Reason 2: No overpriced brunch where the strongest drink you can get is a mimosa.

Reason 3: You can buy your own Mother’s Day gift.

Reason 3a: Vibrators make a great gift.

Reason 3b: As do contributions to Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

Reason 4: You don’t feel the need to spend all day thanking someone for doing the most menial of chores in your stead, like bathing children.

Reason 5: You’re proof that single mothers don’t have to just survive; they can thrive.

Reasons Mother’s Day Should Be Co-opted by Feminist Moms:

Reason 1: Mother’s Day shouldn’t be just a day where society pays lip service to motherhood.

Reason 2: Especially when it’s lip service to society’s jacked up ideal of motherhood and what it should look like.

Reason 3: If one of my partnered friends calls me, morose, and for a good reason, with the news that her husband gave her an implement used for cleaning**, I am going to take up arms.

Reason 4: The single biggest indicator that a person or couple will go through bankruptcy is if they have children. There is something vastly wrong with a society when we devote a day to what we think motherhood should look like and be celebrated for (and for that matter, consider Father’s Day in the same vein), and yet families are living this startling fact.

Reason 5: Mother’s Day should be about the realities of motherhood (parenthood). So why do we spin our wheels with quiche and roses? Our own second world nation lacks high-quality, subsidized childcare. And that, to quote the inimitable Katha Pollitt, is why “in Europe childcare was developed as something would be beneficial to children, like nursery school; in this country, it’s seen as something for women—women, who if middle-class shouldn’t have jobs and if low-income shouldn’t have kids. Daycare in America is about feminism.”

Why someone hasn’t co-opted Mother’s Day and turned it on it’s head before now surprises me. The Republicans co-opted “family values,” so I think it’s only fair we get Mother’s Day.

*tm

*I purposely didn’t include lesbian partnerships in my critique since the few lesbian-partnered friends I have don’t fall into the same traps us hetero girls seem to face.

**One of my good friends, years ago, got a new washing machine for Mother’s Day and called me upset to tell me about it. Granted, it was expensive. Granted it was new and nice and was even the water and energy efficient model. But it’s not a gift, really. I mean, something for the house? Something that supports housework that benefits the entire family? Please.

Admission

Last week, despite the soccer spreadsheet snafu, we got to Thing Three's soccer game early. There was only one other mother there, a woman I've seen a few times. She stood out before because she was so well-dressed, even at the school field where Thing Three's practices are held. She wears neatly pressed DKNY jeans and sweaters. She has a new pair of Danskos on every time I see her, and each of her ears is punctuated by a large, yet tasteful, diamond. She is thin and tan and elegant in a way I'll never be. She was one of the women who flat out ignored me that first practice.

Saturday, though, she smiled at me and said hello. Then she introduced herself and we made small talk. She asked about Thing Three, and noticed Things One and Two. "She's lovely," she said about Thing One. "She looks just like you." She was being genuine and kind, and I wondered, briefly, if it was because no one else was there. I looked at her kids, her toddler son with his mop of hair and in the tiniest soccer gear I've ever seen. I mentioned that he was cute.

"Yeah, we just came from his game." Then she crossed her arms. "The women at his games...I dunno...."

"What?" I asked.

She looked at me, eyes squinting. "It's so cliquey," she said. "I think they don't talk to me because they know I'm a stay-at-home mom. And they all have these careers." She was being honest in a way that pained me. Because you know what, it doesn't change for any of us mothers, does it? Doesn't matter how much money we have, or how many pairs of cute shoes, we still think everyone is judging us.

I think I'm officially one of the soccer moms now. And I don't much mind it anymore, so long as I can keep my tattoo and advanced degree and hip Neko Case t-shirts.

And my fledgling collection of vibrators, of course.

*tm

Soccer Photos, Part II

I'm sorry, I can't help it.

Thing One, kicking some ass:

Thing One going for the ball (she's on the right):

Thing Three, running for the ball:

Thing Three, having a lively conversation on the field, during play time:

And, finally, no soccer photo spread would be complete with pictures of Thing Two. However, these are not of the boy playing soccer, but of the boy hitting on a little girl at Thing Three's soccer game. They are playing their respective Tamogotchis in these photos:

*tm

Death by Soccer

The Things are all playing soccer, as I've discussed before, but I've yet to mention their demanding soccer schedules, particularly when it comes to games. The Things Three play every weekend, which sounds manageable. Three games, 48 hours? I wouldn't even bat my eye at a schedule like that.

But the Things always have at least 5 games total, and this weekend they have 6 between them. Saturday we had to make it to four games and two team photo sessions.

So that I could remember who needed to be where and when, I sat down at my desk Friday afternoon and created a chart. Well, chart wouldn't be accurate. I created a spreadsheet. A soccer spreadsheet, people. I used Excel for god's sakes. And no, I'm not particularly type-A with such things. And while part of me created said document so that I could be sure to get the Things to the appropriate game or photo session at the appropriate time, there was one other reason I did it: to preserve my Goddamn sanity.

And no, I'm not exaggerating. The spreadsheet was a document to behold, with its columns devoted to field name and address, start time and end time, child's name and even a column devoted to expected travel time between each game or event since there was overlap. It was like the Rosetta Stone for the Soccer Mom Set.

And then I did what I do best: I lost it. The spreadsheet I spent 45 minutes on. The spreadsheet with addresses and team names and who went where and when. It was gone.

I know that you're thinking Come on, TM. How hard can it be?

This is how hard:

Saturday morning I woke up and, somewhere between the coffee and the shower, realized I had lost The Soccer Rosetta Stone. I sat down and drew a chart by hand--you know, the Neanderthal version of the spreadsheet--and proceeded to attempt to recreate said document. Remember those word problems where if Tommy was four inches taller than the Amanda but three inches shorter than Justin, who liked only ketchup, then how tall was he? And one would construct a chart to deduce the correct data for each person? That's what I did, though it sounded more like "If Thing One has a game at 11:45, then Thing Two must have photos at 1:00, and that means..."

No, it didn't really work.

What I knew was that someone had photos at 11:15 followed by a game. So I did what any good mother would do: I made them all put on their uniforms, brush their hair and wash their faces, and I carted them off to said photo session. It was Thing One's team photo, and then we headed for the game. I left at the end of the first game (she had two, back-to-back), to drop Thing Two off at his game, then race over to get Thing Three's photos taken, then race back, catch the last quarter of Thing Two's game, get in the car, feed children grapes and water, drive, like a maniac, to pick up Thing One from Fatally Hip Single Mother's house (because the second game was over), drive all three Things to ice cream, and then on to Thing Three's game. If one train is traveling at 60 mph due east and another train is traveling on the same track at 85 mph due west, and they started 567 miles apart, how far apart will the two trains be when the woman with three children in soccer has a massive breakdown?

We arrived home at 4:45 p.m., approximately 6 hours after we started the day. The kids were, somehow, superhumanly, not tired. They rode their bikes and talked of staying up late. I brewed a pot of coffee, cooked pasta salad and sliced apples, and considered the fact that the soccer season is nearly over. Wax socio-economic on the Soccer Mom Coterie? I think I'll take a Valium and call it a day, thanks.

*tm

Thing Two: International Soccer Star

Tell me Thing Two isn't on his way to soccer stardom. Just try to tell me that. I dare you.

*tm

Soccer Mom Infusion

The past week has been rough for one reason and one reason only:

Soccer started.

To be fair, I should have known better than to sign up all three of the Things for soccer at once. But what was I supposed to tell them? That only one kid got to do soccer each season? That seems like the American Single Mother version of the "only one of you gets to eat today," and so, no, I couldn't do that. And it seemed to me at the time that I would be able to set up a carpool or find some other parent, some other mom, to pick up the various Things and take them to practice. We live in a particularly liberal city, in a particularly community-minded and oriented neighborhood, and we espouse things like helping others and whatnot.

So when only one mother, out of 20, responded to my fun and quirky and humorous email looking for someone to take Thing Three to soccer twice a week, I was a little crestfallen. But I thought everyone else was just busy, I mean, I'm busy for god's sakes, so I thought it would work itself out.

Friend Two ended up taking Thing Three to soccer that week, and when I went to pick the youngest thing up, I felt a little odd. Only two of the other mothers (out of 20! 20!) talked to me, and one of them was someone I used to work with. The second was the mother who had emailed me, and she seemed a little weird about it. She volunteered to pick up Thing Three for one practice a week, and I was grateful for that, and told her so, but then she kept repeating that she could only do it once a week, not twice. Which was fine, really, but I could not understand why she kept repeating it as though I was going to take advantage of her.

That was Wednesday.

Thursday included me becoming the Soccer Mom Vicarate as I fandangled my way out of work 90 minutes early, picked up Thing Two, drove to some impossibly remote wooded nature park, only to discover upon arrival that I could not locate the soccer field. Since Thing One's practice started shortly, and because I was the Vicarate of Soccer Motherhood in question, I had to drive back into town, pick up Thing One and four of her friends, load them into my little station wagon along with Thing Two (and breaking numerous moving vehicle codes*), and take them to soccer practice. After which, I ran home, changed into jeans and a t-shirt, gave Thing Two a snack, and then headed back to the soccer field.

You know something? I'm only part way through this entry and I'm damned tired of typing "soccer." I could type that stupid word in my sleep.

But nothing compared, not really, to Thing Two's soccer scrimmage on Friday. The coach's wife offered to pick up the boy from after school care, which was a relief to me. The scrimmage started at 5:00, and because I am a minion of The Government Employ, it can be near impossible to scoot out early**. So I showed up, Things One and Three in tow, around 5:20. And then the other moms did that thing, the worst form of punishment any one of us could inflict on another:

They ignored me.

And when I say ignored, it's not like I'm saying they were bad at small talk or something. I mean they didn't make eye contact. I mean they didn't look at me, didn't even acknowledge my presence. It was hot, so I had changed from my work clothes into crop jeans and a t-shirt and cute sandals. I didn't look like them, but it wasn't that I looked that dissimilar to them. And even still, it was though I didn't exist.

It hurt more than I care to admit. And as they were talking, I could hear myself constructing the story later for friends, how I'd make fun of them, their L.L. Bean tan shorts and crepuscular-colored polos and Teva sandals. And how I'd tell them about those mothers, and how, when they relayed to each other something about a lingerie party in someone's home, which seemed to scandalize them, they kept saying "panty party" and "naked lady party" in a stage whisper.

And I hated how much I wanted certain things they have. One talked about a house that was on sale in her neighborhood. "Not bad for the size," she said of the price. "I think it's 650." As in $650,000. I don't even know how to relate to that. Not even a little. I'm scraping for gas money every week, managing my incredible cost-to-income ratio with credit when I have to, with charity when I can't even manage that.

Finally, maybe 25 minutes in, I cooed at a baby, said how cute he was. And things eased up a bit. Another mother, the one who picked up Thing Two, came over then, talked to me. We had decent small talk. And I noticed how all of these mothers, how they regard me, how they appraise me, because that's the precise word for it. Fatally Hip Single Mother says she thinks they're threatened by us: the single moms with advanced degrees, an endless array of funky shoes and glasses, and the way we collect hip turns of phrase like a macrophage collecting dead skin cells***.

Sometimes, when we're a little drunk, and she's so inclined, Fatally Hip Single Mother will add, "And they're just jealous because they know we're getting NEW SEX! As in sex without a stupid husband you've been married to longer than you've owned your Volvo!" And when we're drunk enough, "Volvo" sounds vaguely erotic. But that's another story. For a different blog. One ending in "xxx," methinks.

I don't want to hate these women, I don't. It feels like giving in to some stupid cultural body politic, some idea that we women should spend a good deal of our lives being snarky to one another. But I also don't have any idea how to reasonably bridge the gap. None. I'm just this young girl to them--I'm 33, but let us labor under the pretense that I look younger--shut it, Friend R--and I've got three kids and I'm single and I go around doing lame things like wearing my Teaching Fellow t-shirt, which I realized later I put on because I wanted them to know I was at least the educated version of a single mother, not the dumb-knocked-up-at-17-smokes-and-drinks-Diet-Dr.-Pepper-while-pregnant version. And so how can I even bridge the gap, relate to their lives, which I think of as small and petty partly because I can't fit in there?

*tm

*I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm super neurotic about things relating to moving vehicles ever since I worked in auto claims. The girls soccer practice is literally 1 1/2 miles from their after school program through sleepy little streets lined with trees and tulips. And all the other parents pile the kids in, put various children on the laps of other children, make them buckle the whole pile in. It nearly gives me hives thinking about it--really, you work one fatal car accident and suddenly you start thinking about how each object in each car could become one of those severe angels you see sometimes in ancient boiseries--but the Other Parents kept doing it without batting an eye. So, much to the chagrin of Nancy Reagan, I gave into the peer pressure, and loaded the kids up. Lord help us all.

**Government Employ is difficult to describe fully. I get great benefits and a fantastic retirement program, am a union member and get about 92 paid holidays a year. But getting off work 30 minutes early to catch the kid's soccer scrimmage? Not so easy.

***I hate you, Fort Awesome. Hate.

The Power Principle

Last week, after the conversation I had with John in which he chanted "Fair!" at regular intervals, I decided I'd have to confront him. This always scares me, has always scared me since we first started dating. There are two reasons for this: One, I dislike confrontation if it has to do with relationships, especially romantic relationships. I'm a whiz at debating topics and theories and ideas, and I can confront just about anyone on those terms. But anything approaching a confrontation with someone I am, or was, romantically involved with? It's tough. I do it, but I hate it.

Part of the reason I've always hated it with John is that he is capable of turning the argument around in two seconds by attacking something about me, using something about me that is unrelated to the issue at hand as a means of gaining ground. I never feel safe confronting him, and I still don't. What could he possibly say to me? Anything. Anything. He has before.

But I knew I was giving him a terrible amount of power over me, and I knew I couldn't keep it up. I had to do something. Fatally Hip Single Mother gave me excellent suggestions* about how to approach the conversation, and I used them. I didn't get angry at him. I calmly stated my position. I didn't attempt to correct his "erroneous" thinking (or what I see as his erroneous thinking). Instead, I reminded him of the parenting plan we created, his obligations under that plan, and the fact it was a legal and binding agreement. When he spouted off about "fair!" I listened, breathed in, and then said I understood how he felt. And then I said, "but these are the facts as I see them: I have the kids 12 days out of 14. Those two days are the only 48 hour window I have to rest and regroup. You are legally obligated to take them for those 48 hours." He hemmed and hawed. He protested and whined. He claimed that he couldn't get off work early. I held my ground. "If you can't get off work before a certain time, I understand, but then it's your responsibility to make suitable arrangements. You cannot pick them up late and then drop them off early."

John hemmed and hawed some more.

And then I said, "And the one time I tell you that you need to pick them up on time, you need to do that. You need to be responsible enough to figure that out. I have more than fulfilled my obligations here."

John said, "I don't know what I can do."

I realized he didn't. He is irresponsible in a very specific way and lacks the ability to problem solve in certain areas of his life.

"Alright," I said, "I'll arrange for a sitter to have them from 5:30 or so until you can pick them up that Friday. But you will need to pay her. That is your responsibility."

"I don't have any money."

"And neither do I. And when I allow you to be flexible for months and months and then ask you to pick them up on time, for once, it is your responsibility to make that happen. I'll arrange for the sitter. But you're paying for it. I am not paying for a sitter the one time I need you to actually follow the legal plan."

He finally agreed. We also found a compromise for the weekends, so that if he gets them later, he drops them off later, with the standard being that I have 48 hours child-free. He implied, repeatedly, that I was being petty. I didn't argue with him on that point, just calmly repeated "I have a freelance career I'm starting, a full household, many responsibilities, and I need that time."

And you know? I felt an odd sense of power, something I've hardly left a conversation with him feeling. I stuck up for myself. I stuck to the outline in my head, remembered that I only needed to accomplish a and b. So that when he kept turning the conversation to old arguments (he always says that I promised to move to Portland and I haven't) I didn't take the bait. As soon as I realized I didn't have to change his mind to get what I wanted, everything sort of fell in line.

I did it. I actually did it. I'm sort of surprised by myself. And happy, too.

*tm

*suggestions, not advice, FYI. Because advice would be wrong.

Fair and Safe

Monday morning, Thing One threw up at school so the secretary called me. Despite Ike's protests that vomiting wasn't that serious, I picked up the eldest monkey, took her home and spent the day with her. What became readily apparent was that she didn't have the flu--no fever or cough--and while her stomach was upset, she kept down soda and popsicles, and eventually a bagel. I could tell something was upsetting her by the way she stayed close all day, wanted to lay with me on the couch and watch me knit. Thing One is 8 the way other people are 21: she owns being that age and rules it with a kind of elementary-school confidence. So the mother need was unusual, though I thought it was likely just something more about the Girl Wars at school.

Then Tuesday night at dinner she broke. "Papa said he was going to marry Sara," she cried. "And that if Sara wants to, they'll adopt a baby."

There are a handful of times when I've been rendered speechless. This was one of them.

Thing One put her head down on her plate--empty because she had refused to eat much for the past two days--and sobbed. "Why does he need another baby?" she asked. "He has us. He has us."

There have been times when Things Two or Three get upset and cry about their dad, the divorce, any of it. And I've told myself that those times are hard because they lack the verbal acuity to voice their feelings. I realize now that isn't true. Watching Thing One grieve--she's the kid who, at 7, cried and said, "I want you to live together again, but I know you can't. And it makes me sad."--is a special kind of pain. I can't tell her everything will be alright because she knows better.

At the dinner table, I scooted my chair next to hers, put my arms around her. I rested my forehead on the back of her neck. At the nape her hair is still baby soft, thin and light and fragile. "I'm sorry," I said. It seemed like the only thing I could say that was true.

"I don't understand," she said. "He moved away from us."

"I know."

"If they adopt a baby, then it will get to see him more than I do. And he'll like it better than us. He won't be able to help it." Thing One's chest heaved when she talked and her body shook.

Right then I wanted to hurt John. I wanted to shake him hard. Look at this, I wanted to tell him. Look. This is what responsibility fucking looks like.

John didn't admit to saying anything at first, though now he says it was all a side comment, nothing important.

Last night, I asked him to switch weekends with me, since I have something going on in late April. He agreed, but noted that I would need to take them two weekends in a row. "Well," I said, "you'll be here Easter, so I'll get a break anyway."

He was quiet.

"Because you and Sara are taking them out, right?" Last year, when we were going through mediation and creating a parenting plan, he had argued to alternate Easters. This was because last year, when I asked if he wanted to come over for Easter, he snapped at me. "I'm an atheist," he said. "Why do I care about Easter?"

It was dig against Jon, who was in seminary. When I made plans for Easter that didn't include him, though, he was angry and then sad. So he wanted to alternate the holiday, argued for it in mediation. And now it's as though he can't remember why.

"I'll be there for a few hours," he said.

"I know. I'm just trying to calculate how I'm going to do this without a break for two weeks."

"Well, I'm not taking them three weekends in a row. That wouldn't be fair."

Fair. The word stuck. Fair. I had just asked him if he could manage to pick them up early that Friday in April, at 5:00 pm. He had sighed, said he'd have to check with his boss to see if he could get off early, but he wasn't sure, and wouldn't know until maybe that week. Fair. The word doesn't carry any meaning with me anymore. Does he want to talk about fair?

Nevermind that he does not pay for their prescriptions or doctors' visits, though he promised to, and Thing One's asthma medication runs $95 a month easy.

Nevermind that he does not help cover their soccer registration fees or uniform costs.

Nevermind that he does not pay child support on time.

Nevermind that he can drop emotional bombs like "I might marry Sara and adopt a baby" and then leave without having to deal with the repercussions.

Nevermind that he never shows up on time for his weekends.

It was then that I realized that 5:00 pm is the time he's supposed to pick them up. That's the agreement. That's in the stupid parenting plan we made. And he's broken it for months now because he gets off work later than that, sometimes as late as 8pm. What's worse is that it has become so regular that I've allowed him to redefine the terms so that 5:00 pm is early. I spend every other Friday driving up to Portland to drop them off, or I hire a sitter so I can go to a reading, and then I drive them up Saturday morning. He drops them off early on Sundays too sometimes. I get 48 hours of child-free time every two weeks, and even that he tries to cut in on. "I appreciate you being so flexible," he says frequently. And I fucking let him get away with all of it.

This is what I do. I wouldn't let my friends get away with this, even my male friends. If Friend R were to ever pull something as crappy as this, I'd box his cute little ears and then I'd be done with him. I never have to worry about this, though. My friends are loyal and good and kind. They take care of me and they take care of me well. But while I wouldn't tolerate such behavior from my friends, the men I'm either romantically involved with, or were, somehow get carte fucking blanche. And part of the reason is that they're sort of emotionally crippled or something. They always seem unaware of what they're doing or what they've done.

Fair.

The Nefarious Poet and I have been trying to repair our friendship, despite what happened at AWP. He said he wanted something "safe and manageable," and I missed him, missed just talking to him, missed that connection, the way he got me, understood me. So we started emailing. But his words stick the way John's do.

Safe? Safe? No one gets safe, NP. Who would want safe? No relationship, not even a simple friendship, is safe, let alone this one. And I don't want safe. It's not worth my goddamn time. And it isn't worth yours either.

Last weekend Tim-Tim told me, over dinner at an Italian place, that pouring anything more, even friendship, into the Nefarious Poet was useless. "He's like a piggy bank with the plug pulled out. Whatever you put in there isn't going to stick."

After NP sent me a photo of an ex-girlfriend making eyes at the camera for him, I began to see Tim-Tim was probably right. Like John, he doesn't know any better. It's fair and safe. Everything fair and safe. Fair and safe. Meanwhile, the balance goes on my account, it's my job to deal with the fallout, to deal with the repercussions, to hold up the illusion of fair and safe for these men. I can't do it anymore. And I don't want to.

*tm

(listening to a playlist which includes the not-oft combined "Irreplaceable," by Beyonce, "Chan Chan," from the Buena Vista Social Club Soundtrack, "Jackson," by Lucinda Williams, "Someone to Pull the Trigger," by Matthew Sweet, and "Black Sheep" by Martin Sexton, among others).

Remainder

Last night I helped Thing One finish her math homework. She's learning division, but they're still at the stage of using remainders. I had forgotten about remainders until I saw her mark one with a capital R. I miss them. They make more sense now. When did we start to think we could figure everything out, carry something down to the last digit, the 1000th place or the 1000000th place?

It never works. There are always remainders.

"What's zero, really?" she asked, halfway through.

"It's not really a number," I said. "It's an idea."

"What does that mean?"

"It shows absence. It symbolizes what isn't there."

Thing One thought about this for a minute. "Yeah," she said. "Like it's a circle around nothing. Like, 'look, here's nothing!'" She laughed.

I nodded. I thought about the Chudnovsky brothers who built their own computer to calculate pi. When I last read about them, they had calculated out 2 billion places, with still no pattern found, no final number. There has always been something strangely comforting to me about that, about them. The faith it takes to keep going. The fact no end is in sight.

"I like the remainders," I said.

But Thing One had already gone on to the next idea. "Zero is like tomorrow. Like the word tomorrow."

"What?" I said.

"Tomorrow is an idea, too," she said. "So it's like zero. There isn't a real tomorrow. You never get there."

Remember how I was all "Thing One isn't as smart as I was, wah-wah-wah"?

Now? Now I have to DESTROY her!

*tm