May 22, 2003
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Two.
I've been musing about love. And kids.
What does it mean to love your children? Do we have some sort of blueprint about what we think motherlove is, and if so, can you portioned it out? Can we love the same way each time? And if not, is that love a lesser one than another?
Am I making any kind of sense?
I love my kids. Do I love them in the same way? Nope. And I will even dare to say that sometimes, I don't even love them equally (despite what your mama told you). You can't love people equally - it doesn't work that way. I will say, that there has never been a moment that I didn't love each of them fiercely - but there has been times that I didn't particularly like either one of them. And sometimes, I liked one better. So there. My oldest child is a handful - loud, stroppy, demanding, articulate, imaginative and playful. She is also sweet, helpful and determined. Some days, she and I gel terrifically and some days we retreat to our corners in the boxing ring and glare warily at each other while nursing our bruises. On those days, she doesn't engender the wellspring of love in me that her younger sister does. Her younger sister is still very young, but she is calmer, less intense, more social, less prickly and more easy going. And (let's face it) a helluva a lot less work. And she's more vulnerable and dependent and that means that all my mother-bear instincts sit right underneath the surface ready to leap out and savage any threats. Her head smells new, her face creases with smiles when she sees me as if someone told her I died in the night, and I am her world. Pretty easy to love. Except when she has colic and is screaming unreasonably for 4 hours every night or pukes all over me for the third time or gets poop all up her butt crack and all over the sheets. Then, I grab her sister in a headlock and remember all the great wonderful things that make up a three year old.
And I feel guilty. Guilty because I resent having to turn love on and off like I am a tap. I resent having to fake what I don't feel. And I feel even guiltier knowing that I am an adult and supposed to be in charge.
Do they pick up on my resentment?
I resent having to beg my eldest child for five minutes peace. For not wanting my lap encumbered with a child every damn time I sit down. And resent so quickly can turn to dislike unless you are careful. It's not my eldest's fault that she isn't content with the scraps of attention that she gets when the baby is sated. She's three, not thirty.
The baby isn't gorging on love and cuddles either. She's most often learning to be content with whatever attention I can give her without my three year old shouldering her out of the way. So far, she gets some knee-bouncing time, some singing games and as many kisses on her head as I can get away with. And I resent the 4 hour colic fit at night when by all rights, I should be able to sit with my feet up after my day began at 2am.
And here I am, juggling attention and affection in the air like a circus performer, hoping that whatever I can hold in the air for as long as I can hold it - is enough.
Perversely, you can sometimes love them more when they are at their most difficult. When my baby is screaming and angry, I feel a rush of fierceness that she wants only me. And that her sobs turn to whimpers when I pick her up and she snuffles into my neck. And when my child-of-the-hundred-questions gets revved up and asks all about death and where you go and what does heaven look like and why are that lady's lips on crooked and why do you fart and Mum Mum Mum listen to me Mum.... I get a thrill that she thinks I actually know the answers to such questions and that she trusts me to answer them and that for a little while longer at least - I am god to her.
How can you love equally when it's like that? Sometimes you just want to throw your hands up and say 'enough! Go ahead and write your tell-all book when you are twenty-five and hate my guts! I am done with this. I am doing my best. I am only human and I am so very imperfect.'
So here I am. The Cafeteria Lady of love. A cuddle here, a story or two, some bouncing, some head kissing, some jigsaw puzzles and kissed scraped knees and raspberried bellies and dear god, make that be enough.
Comments (11)
i only have the one child,so i don't know where you are coming from on the subject of trying to divide your love between two little ppl.
but i do know how it is to have a small child and a mentally unstable husband.and to be the head of the family-extended included.it is very difficult.
hugs to you,i can sympathize with you.
and thank you for bloging again,it's a bright spot in my otherwise boring home life.
Thank you for being so honest! I have one three year old boy and he is a handful! I can completely relate to feeling fierce love and resentment sometimes in the same moment. I have the same worries about whether my child will feel responsible for these things. (lately he has taken to saying, "Mommy, be Happy!!"...I've become the mother of Drop Dead Fred!!)
On the positive side, your children will absorb the love and attention you give them like little sponges, the same way they absorb everything else! My girlfriends who have more than one child have told stories similar to yours. I think that is part of growing up in a house with siblings. In other words....NORMAL!
Go have a coffee! You do good work, mom!
It'll be enough. I promise.
I think the bottom line is you love your kids and you do the best you can. I feel more love for a particular child some days. I swear that they take turns being the demon child and they hide the schedule so I don't know who is it from day to day. The thing that saves me is that they are rarely bad at the same time.
I love sourmilkneck.
It is enough. It is only the mothering instinct that makes us feel it never is.
Oh Stress, you know I've been musing about love of more than one child lately, so the topic is near to my heart... the 13 year old distances himself sometimes, or is moody, but the almost 4 year old is adorable, brilliant and sometimes totally evil, heh, so she engenders stronger feelings, sometimes... maybe also because she seems so small and needs me, and it brings that motherlove so close to the surface... now with the newest one due any minute here, I worry that I will slight her, with this intense bond we've had, or slight the baby in continuing that... I guess love is just different for all the different ways we feel it, including different days, different moods, different kids, and for me, different manic phases, too... but down at the very core of it all, it all comes from the same heart, and is the same love. xo
When I was being a snot-nosed shit, my mom would often say to me in a humorous but honest tone, "Girl, I may have to love you, but I DO NOT have to like you".
I've always admired that honesty. And let's be frank, half the time we don't even really like our families. There are going to be times when your kids don't really like you either! There's going to be resentment on both sides of the fence. There are going to be things that shouldn't have been said that you'll regret. There are going to be times when you relate to one child more than the other and times when they'd rather talk to their dad than you about something. And it's going to hurt. There are going to be times you'll curse each other and wonder what life would be like if you'd never had them. They'll wish they'd been born into some other family, because susie's mom lets her go to the mall by herself! It's natural to despise your family sometimes. And that's good, because what you don't want is one of those kids who's so comfortable being dependent that you're still doing their laundry when they're 35! heh
A big part of your job is making them feel loved and secure and happy. But don't forget another part of your job is to make them strong and resilient so they can grow up to be full of character and independent and not needy of their parent's approval. So they can survive out in the world. A world that isn't always going to like them, let alone love them.
I think trying to create the perfect environment for a child - shielding them completely from your emotions and the realities of the world - is as futile as it is selfish.
You're doing the best you can. And that's more than enough.
Thank you for having the courage to write what I have been torturing myself over: favoritism! I have a 7 year old who is EXACTLY like me. Only she's like me NOW - not like I was when I was 7. She's a 28 year old smart mouth trapped in the small body of a 7 year old. She's fast, smart, wisecracking and can leave me stumbling for words to cover my total loss of comeback. My 3 year old is a mama's boy, his favorite saying being the tag line of I'll Love You Forever. At times I feel guilty for thinking that maybe I love Noah (3 yr old) more. I've recently came to the conclusion that it's not that I love him more, I love them differently - because they are different people. And that's.....OK!
Seeing that you have some the same thoughts makes me think that maybe I wasn't as unprepared for this motherhood thing and I berate myself!
You've been mentioned in Issue #42 of Randomized.
Well, having an almost 3 yo and almost 1 yo, I completely relate, once again.
I hold onto the thought that if they are not dead and not in jail by the time they are 21, I have done a "good enough" job. Oh, and since they're both girls, not yet pregnant.
So, I take the almost 3 yo to swim practice because we have two ponds, and I try my best to protect the almost 1 yo from the "loving attention" of her sister. Without killing the love that really is the cause of it. And hope that's enough.
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