My daughter’s birthday has come and gone once again, and a happy birthday it was too! The anniversary of her arrival, full of wondrous memories, often turns me up thoughtful and this year was no exception.
When I conceived without benefit of matrimony, people offered me money for my baby. Nice people, or so they seemed. People in better circumstances than I was at the time, and in better circumstances than I was ever likely to be. I had not planned to become pregnant, and I lectured myself at length to do the right thing for the baby. Except… if someone is desperate enough to pay for a baby (under the guise of covering my expenses and tuition bills), is that the right thing? I got into counseling, and this was back in the day before managed care (greed) limited that kind of support to ten sessions shared with twelve other people.
I kept the baby, but have often doubted the decision. If you want to wreck a kid, the process is simple: Take dad away. Every bad outcome that can befall a child becomes MUCH more likely if dad is not in the picture (especially for boys). My daughter’s dad took himself out of the picture very early in her life (he tells a different story).
It’s not that dads are intrinsically more magical than moms, though dads do tend to earn more money than moms. It’s that if a mom disappears, other women will step in–aunties, grandmas, step-moms, neighbors and so forth. If a dad disappears, other men–for whatever reason–are much less likely to step in. Often, a single mom is truly a single parent. A single dad is a single parent with reinforcements, and children know the difference.
Anyhoo, I doubted my decision, all the while appreciating that I lived in a society where I had options. The road I chose was hard on my daughter (see above), and I regret that. A lot. I should have moved closer to family, I should have found better daycare, I should have set firmer boundaries, whatever, whatever, whatever.
When I see my daughter with her own child, though, I get a strong sense that I made a good choice. She’s a devoted, well informed, loving and extraordinarily good-humored mom. She has taken both the good and bad examples I set as a parent, and synthesized them into excellent mothering for her child (her partner is doing a first-rate parenting job too), and this gives me more peace than you can imagine. She had a good enough mother–and I made a good enough choice.
This is another gift that results from remaining on the planet after the bright and bold years have passed (though I hope bright and bold moments yet remain to me). Belated hindsight can be kind and even revelatory. I did the best I could, doubts and all, and maybe that was even better than I knew.
Now there’s a thought.
Have you had occasion to look back on your younger self, your decisions and struggles, and found both respect and compassion for younger you that eluded you at the time? When the best you could do turned out–in hindsight–to be pretty impressive after all?
Heavy topic! I had an epiphany in my late sixties when an awareness of all the things I did and priorities I set that were wrong hit me hard. I was flabbergasted. I thought I had been doing better than it appears I was. I have worked hard to let my kids confront me about their hurts and let them know that I understand their anger and apologize when I need to.
Interestingly I started my family the same way you did only I married the dad. I knew it was a risk but felt I needed to try. I was not happy and realized one day that I was modeling some truly dysfunctional relationship behavior. So I end with a divorce and determination that my 2 daughters should not suffer for it. I was way too focused on material issues and many other flaws. The dad proved over and over that my decision was sound and for the best by far.
The girls are now women and I am the grandmother of 4. I do think they are doing better than I did at parenting on the whole so the evolution of family function appears to be developing in a good direction.
Agree. I was raised with the old model–mom tended the house, dad brought in the money–and that wasn’t ideal by any means. What followed for me was trying to be all things, the breadwinner, parent, chief cook and bottler washer… not good either. My daughter and her partner are finding a better balance, where nobody has to pull any one load exclusively, and the children have two functioning, involved parents. What a concept.
Beautiful picture! Touching baring-of-the-soul, that resonates with ALL of us—-we all can look back and find forks in the road that might have led to a happier destination for our children. That is what i love about your writing: it rings true.
You have a gift of writing, and perhaps that gift was refined by the fires you chose to walk through. God bless and keep you.
Thank you for those kind words. I know as February approaches that I will likely ruminate on the past, but this year I felt more of a sense of closure. That grandma thing, I guess.
I was very hard on myself as a mom. Though I was lucky enough to have a wonderful partner who was involved and protective of both me and our kids, I also felt like I didn’t have a great role model of a mother to pattern myself after. My mother was extremely critical of everything I did. She never gave praise, believing that we would stop trying to improve if we were patted on the back for incremental successes. She believed, fiercely, that to spare the rod was irresponsible. My dad was mostly absent, holding several jobs to make ends meet, coming home late at night after we kids were already asleep. What did I know about being a mother? I never even babysat kids! There were times that I truly believed that if my kids didn’t grow up to be axe murderers that I would be relieved (surprised also!). But looking back, I realize that I did the best I was able to with the training I’d had. My desire to do a better job of raising my kids than my mother had paid off in the end. My “kids” (now both in their 40’s) are wonderful, amazing people who I am immensely proud of. So I have forgiven myself for maybe not having all the right answers at the time. The one thing I had going for me was the desire to do better, and, apparently, I did! As did you, Grace! Stay safe. Stay well everyone!
A lot of what I learned as a child welfare attorney was sad and scary, but I also came across a ton of studies, case histories, and clinicians who stood firmly behind the thesis that children don’t expect perfect parents. They don’t expect parents who can take them on magical vacations or cook spectacular dinners every night. Children understand about limited resources and bad days, provided those children also know they are loved. If the child doesn’t feel loved, all the material comfort in the world, all the logical consequences parenting (or whatever the fad of the day is), or effusive words can’t fix what’s wrong.
I’m trying to gift myself with more self compassion. Darned, it’s hard work! I know I’ll be better for it. Kristen Neff has an excellent book on self compassion that I can highly recommend.
She has a couple out. I’ll start with the first one, because whatever else is true, I’m not burned out.
https://self-compassion.org/books-by-kristin-neff/
Oh, Grace, that is such a sweet picture of you with your daughter!
As for being the perfect Mom…. there is no such thing! We are so overwhelmed with the media messaging and we can’t help but fail again and again. I tell my son’s this from time to time… there is no way we can get “it” right! We are not perfect, we are human, overwhelmed, tired, anxious, insecure and simply have too little support in our culture (even with a Dad nominally in the picture). Its the “you made your bed, now you get to lie on it” belief system and it is painful. But that said, most Moms get most of it right much of the time. And if we are trying and care that goes a long way. We all have to grow up into a difficult and challenging world, and all of us have different challenges. I am really glad you are able to see yourself in a better light now that your daughter is also a Mom. Its early days yet…. the challenges will be there for her too. Lets hope she has some of your wisdom too.
Well,said, Betsy.
And you are right–it’s early days for her. But how quickly those days go by, one dirty dipe, sleepless night, and visit to the pediatrician at a time.
Yes Yes Yes
Now at 80 years I can see the mistakes I made and the consequences. However no one got killed and we did have fun along the way. we didn’t starve. we mostly had a roof over our head and much of that was up to me.
Oh and they don’t hate me.
Also come to Australia if you can, its a great place. just don’t expect to see everything in a short period of time. I call it the “tyranny of distance”.
Caroline Allenby
Carol, my mom would applaud your attitude and so do I. I was briefly in Melbourne and Sydney a few years back. Oh, LORDY, do I want to spend more time in Oz and NZ. Wonderful countries.
Not a mom even though I would have loved to be; oh, well . . .
Happily, I was able to work with children for forty-four years.
I do ask myself why I didn’t have more confidence in myself from high school through most of my adult years.
Now that I’m seventy-eight, I find I’m forgiving myself for all those insecurities and truly settling into my true self. Looking forward to the coming decade or two.
PS ~ Love the photos!
I’m with you. I see posts about older women feeling invisible, and tend to think, “If all anybody saw of you was how pretty or charming or sweet you were, YOU WERE ALWAYS INVISIBLE, but now you are beginning to see yourself. That matters!”
I also had my eldest before I married her dad, she was an adorable toddler at my wedding. We’re still married but it hasn’t been the smoothest road. I worry about every part of my parenting being insufficient, and it is made trickier by coparenting (and navigating marriage) with an Autistic man. I really do ALL the emotional labor, and I don’t like how that sets up poor expectations my daughters have for relationships. I’m doing a much better job than my parents, (which is a low bar but I’ll take it) and my kids voluntarily embrace family time, so I hope that means I’m meeting that good enough standard.
Grace, that is just the cutest picture of you and your daughter!
One of my family members is in a similar situation, the only non-divergent among divergents, and he has a relentless, uphill load. Laughter helps, as does carving out time for his own pursuits, and time has helped too. He has asked enough questions of enough professionals that he finally knows, “You are not nuts, selfish, weird, or arrogant. Your family, as lovely as they are, would challenge anybody…” And the validation helps too.
As moms, are we ever satisfied with ourselves? I don’t think so.
I have been blessed with a wonderful husband. We tried so hard, for so long, to have a baby. When she, finally, was miraculously born, there were no words to describe our joy– or the joy of my parents as first-time grandparents (and time would tell, only-time grandparents) and my husband’s parents, as well as sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins, who all first suffered for us and then rejoiced with us. We had the support of an extended family who loved her dearly.
My husband and I were terrified. Despite the fact that I am a nurse and he’s a respiratory therapist, we were so afraid she would break or that we were doing the wrong things or that she would die. When she was still a tiny baby, I wailed to her pediatrician about how nerve-wracking it was to have a child, even when we were so medically minded. He soothingly told me that it actually made things harder, because we knew about all the things that could go wrong. “In some cases, it’s true that ignorance is bliss,” he said.
Our precious daughter would go on to excel in school, and never left the house without saying (or shouting) “Love you!” She completed her undergrad and graduate degrees with high honors, was known as cheerful and generous, a wonderful friend, and a daughter of whom we were so proud!
She died in her sleep at age 32, due to a blood clot in her lungs, probably as an after effect of COVID from several months earlier. Her Dad and I mourn her every hour of every day.
We blame ourselves for doing, or not doing, many things. But I do know we loved her fiercely and did the absolute best we could. So all you moms out there, don’t be hard on yourselves (same for dads). Grace, I adore your message: “She had a good enough mother–and I made a good enough choice.” I can take solace from that, too.
I got to the line about “who loved her dearly,” noted the past tense, and didn’t want to read on (though I did).
I am sorry for your loss. My aunt lost an adult son (age 26) and her husband a few years apart. She said being a widow is hard, but you know one of you has to go first, and there were a lot of good years, so let the grief arrive, and let it, eventually depart.
Losing her son was flat out, scream-at-God until you pass out, unbearable. It shouldn’t happen, and I am very sorry it happened to you and your family.
I know I did the best I thought I could at the time but there are many decisions I wish I had made differently. I am not including motherhood, which I did not experience and have never regretted (I always said I was just too selfish and mostly thought of what I would lose by having children and I didn’t think any child deserved a mother thinking that way). While there are some actions I took that might look impressive to others, I’d have a hard time coming up with ones I think of that way. Guess I’m too hard on myself but it’s okay.
Glad to see most commenters are happy with how things turned out.
Altogether now: YES, you are too hard on yourself, and, NO, that is not OK!!! Please give yourself a big hug for all the times you did the best you could, and just kept showing up, even when it felt like you might have been messing up.
My story is a bit different. I was married when I had my two kids. All those insecurities and doubts were about the effect of divorce. Like other commenters I loved my kids fiercely and was ambivalent about the absence of their dad. I was akways working so hard,I have forgotten so much. This past summer they took me and their families to Montreal for a long weekend and i had much the same thought, maybe I did ok. I think we all want to be perfect parents but can’t because we’re human. I hope you win, go to Australia. Enjoy!
My siblings tell me, “If your kids like spending time with you, if they are glad to see you, if they share their good news with you… you did OK.” Smart people, my siblings.
One of my cousins “bought” a baby off Facebook. His birth mother was a ward of the state, conception a one night stand producing a mixed race boy. The child is half grown now, a lovely and loved child, but has faced significant learning issues. I’m sure, his parents are sure, the extended family is sure, that it was the “right” thing. But was it? Is it? The expectations are high.
I had 3 or 4 choices of college major at my dad’s alma mater. Did I choose the right one? There are 4 of us girls and none of us worked long-term in the fields we studied. “A total waste of time and money,” according to my mother, although it was my time, my money.
I caved on all 3 of those choices to keep the peace. I’m glad the peace was kept, but was the price right? Honestly, I still don’t know. I do know I married “the best man” although at 5 years younger, he was too young, really, to be married!
I think when it comes to college, most of the benefit is not vocational. Yes, some of us come out ready to be professional translators or third grade teachers, but most of us come out with more social awareness, a broader perspective, more confidence, and more general knowledge than we had when we went in. I was a music history major (also got a degree in poli sci), and that was supposedly a useless degree. I could not EVEN claim to have mastered the performance repertoire that’s supposed to go along with a music degree.
But what I learned about history through the lens of music, what I learned about the relationships between the arts, society, politics, and money, and what I learned about me (because I failed miserably at performance but loved history) was well worth the “useless” degree.
I hope your experience is equally redeemed over time, (and you mom doesn’t know beans from Shinola, on this topic).