The D Word

My four-year-old has started to say something that I just don’t want to hear. And no, I’m not talking about the four-letter words that proliferate on the playground (though I’m not crazy about those, either). This four-letter word is of an altogether different calibre.

 

Dead.

 

In play, she’ll stretch out on the floor and say, “I’m dead.” Or jump on top of me or my husband when we're roughhousing and say, “You’re dead.”

 

I try not to take it too seriously. After all, she's just a kid. But my own loss is still recent enough that it hurts to hear her say those words. Part of me wants to grab her by the shoulders and ask, “Do you understand what you’re saying? Do you know how much it hurts when someone you love dies?”

 

Of course she doesn’t. At four years old, a child’s grip on time is tenuous at best—and this is a kid who falls asleep in the car in the afternoon and wakes up thinking it’s the next day. There’s no way she can conceive of the permanence of death.

 

This kind of behaviour is normal for her stage of development. I’ve read the articles, and they advise taking it slow, giving her just the information she needs to satisfy her curiosity. When I’ve asked my daughter what she thinks “dead” means, she says, “It means you’re not here anymore.” 

 

True enough—but it's not like taking an extended holiday. When you experience the loss of someone you love, it changes you, shapes the person you will become. Part of me wants her to understand that.

 

But a bigger part of me wants her never to understand.

 

I want both of my daughters to grow up strong and brave, open to experience all of the joys that life has to offer. But that means they’ll also be exposed to the struggles and setbacks that come with them.

 

As mothers, we want to be superheroes to our children. From the beginning, our natural instinct is to protect them. We want to shield them from the losses and pain that are an inevitable part of growing up, but that’s a losing battle.

 

I know I’ll eventually have to explain to my daughter what death really means...but not today, okay?

 

Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, my little one. It will happen before you know it. For now, just be a kid. And let me protect you for just a little while longer.

The (Mommy) Confidence Gap

Recently, I went to the Art of Leadership for Women conference with some colleagues. Clearly, the draw was Martha Stewart—who remains a terrifying and awesome presence despite her time in the slammer—but I really enjoyed Katty Kay's session on the confidence gap. She and Claire Shipman (both journalists) have been researching the roots of confidence—particularly, why men have so much of it and women, ostensibly, so little.

Some people say they're creating a gender divide that doesn't really exist. But as I listened to her talk about how women dwell on the small mistakes and forget the larger victories; how they obsess about being perfect and are afraid to the risk of being wrong; how they secretly believe they don't deserve the good things that have come their way, I thought, That sounds like me.

And you know what else? That sounds like motherhood.

There is nothing more beautiful—and more terrifying—than the moment the nurse or doctor or midwife places your newborn in your arms for the first time. And even as you're falling in love with those sweet little features, you're thinking, Oh my God...they trust ME to take care of a newborn?!

Those endless questions—What do I do now?, Am I doing it right?—haunt us. We worry about whether our children are developing the way they're supposed to—because if they're not, clearly, it's our fault. We blame ourselves for problems or when things don't work out (see my obsessive guilt about not being able to breastfeed my first baby if you want proof of that one).

And yes, during that moment when we look away for just one second and the child rolls off the change table or falls off the bed, we question whether we are fit to be mothers. 

I'm sure fathers experience some of those thoughts and feelings, too. But they ring particularly true for mothers, I think, because we are always evaluating ourselves—against other mothers or against some ridiculously high standard that is impossible to meet.

That's why we need to help each other out. As women, as mothers, we need to be kind to one another. In the absence of a "village" to help us raise our children, the least we can do is support one another—and know that, despite our confidence in our parenting skills (or lack thereof), we have all of the competence that we need to raise healthy, happy kids. 

This, I know, is a gap we can overcome.

Three Things I Rarely Said Before I Had Kids, Which I Now Say Every Day

Sometimes, when I listen to myself talking to my kids, I sound like a broken record. But what's funny is that most of the things I say, I would never (okay, rarely) say to an adult.

So today, I give you three things that I never said before I had kids, which I now say ALL THE TIME.

1. Don't put that in your mouth. This oral fixation thing...how long does it last, anyway? Because I still have to remind my four-year-old not to suck on her (newly manicured) fingers. And my not-yet-two-year-old—well, there's no telling what she'll decide looks interesting/tasty on any given day. She's been known to eat crayons, stickers...pretty much anything she can fit in her mouth. Yesterday, she was sucking on the lid of lip balm like it was a lollipop. Good parent that I am, I removed it before she swallowed it. Much to her dismay.

2. Go to sleep. Adults usually leave each other's sleeping habits alone, but I have spent more time trying to get my kids to go to sleep than doing any other parental task. And my kids are GOOD sleepers! I hear from other mothers that bedtime can be a battle of epic proportions, requiring boardroom-sharp negotiation skills and bribery that rivals the corruptness of world politics. Or, you know, just waiting until they pass out.

3. Why would you do that? I'm very curious about the thought process that my kids must go through, because often, their actions mystify me. For example, why is it that my kids' first reaction to something new is usually, Can I break it? What makes one decide to dump out every Q-tip or Kleenex from the box and then put them back in, one by one? When one has a napkin close at hand, why would one wipe one's sticky, chocolatey hands on one's clean clothes? What motivates one to think, I wonder what ketchup feels like in my hair? If you find out, please let me know.

What do YOU say to your kids that you never thought you'd say? I'd be interested to hear your comments on this one.

Greener Pastures

I like to read family drama-type novels, and I recently read Sleepwalking in Daylight, a story told from the dual perspectives of an adopted teenage girl and her mother. The mother, who is also the biological mother of twin 8-year-old boys, is a stay-at-home mom who embarks on a quasi-affair with a man who has a wife and a little girl (although their relationship is really more about talking than about physical intimacy). 

What hooks her is this: after a chance encounter and conversation on a commuter train, he asks her, "Do you ever want to walk away from your life? Do you ever think this life is not exactly what you had planned? Do you ever crave something, anything, that could wake you up?"

Suffice it to say, everything ends badly—the book is more of a cautionary tale than a real life lesson. But I think, if we're honest with ourselves, many of us would admit a certain truth to some of those questions.

Before you had kids, did you have a clear vision of what your day-to-day life would look like? For most working parents, each day is much the same. The specific activities vary, but generally, you rush to work, to rush home, to rush the kids through their evening routine, to eke out a couple of hours of time to yourself before you pass out. And then you wake up and do it all over again.
 
Fulfillment: it may well be the Holy Grail for adult women, but I'm not sure it exists. I know many others like me who, if you asked them, would say they're generally happy. Yet they're still always looking for more.

Part of the issue may be the expectations that we place on ourselves. We're always waiting for that next step in life—the new job, getting married, having kids, buying a new house, et cetera—that will bring us true contentment. And, as if that weren't enough, working mothers heap on more expectations. For some reason, we believe that we have to be good at everything—from decorating birthday cakes to disciplining our children to balancing chequebooks to kicking ass in the boardroom. Well, guess what...we weren't perfect before we had kids. So why would we ever think that we could be perfect now?

There are ways to create change, great or small, without changing course entirely. Sometimes, a change in direction is exactly what you need. For example, we have friends who packed up the kids and the house and moved to Australia for a year. You can do that sort of thing, even when you have kids. You just have to want it enough.

What's hard is that, well, we're all so tired. When you get to a certain point in your life, it's so much easier to swim downstream than to fight the current. But it means that, often, you're just drifting.

The lesson that book taught me wasn't that I need a life overhaul but, rather, that I should dig deeper to find the energy to change the parts that I want to change. So I will. And perhaps I still won't find that elusive Holy Grail of fulfillment...but I hope I'll get just a little bit closer.

To My Four-year-old, With Love

How can you possibly be four
When just four minutes ago,
You fit perfectly into the crook of my arm, curled up like a seashell, sleeping with concentration,
Or crying those plaintive infant tears as I rocked you endlessly in the rocking chair,
Or clinging to my chest like a little monkey, bright-eyed and curious about the world around you?

How can you be four
When just four seconds ago, 
I watched you take your first wobbly steps—and then take off like lightning,
Watched your world expand as you learned something new every day
And began to understand its joys and sorrows?

How can it be
That you are no longer a baby or a toddler,
But a little (big) girl whose lean legs and arms dangle when I pick you up,
Who speaks in full sentences and questions everything, 
Who can ride a bike, count to 100 and spell her name,
Who tells knock-knock jokes (albeit bad ones)
And knows every line from Frozen by heart?

You are growing up. 

And it worries me, because sometimes—most often when you're sulking or mad—I look at your sweet, sullen face, and I catch a glimpse of the lovely young woman that you will become. And while I have every confidence in your brains and your beauty, I'm not at all ready for that.

So do me a favour: don't grow up. Stay my little girl; let me read to you and sing to you.
Keep wanting me—to be with me—every day.

Give me four more seconds to cuddle you and hold you close. 
Let me be your moon and your stars for just four minutes longer.