I couldn’t get my head around it. They nurse too long. They fall and come back with bruises. They touch the hot oven. They don’t eat what I calculated their body needs. They don’t sleep enough. I could not get them safe. And whatever I try there are always the know-it-alls, the breastfeed-them-this-ways, the don’t-leave-them-in-the-cars, the sleep-them-on-their-backs and all of them belong to the because-they-are-going-to-die group.
I couldn’t get my head around it.
What am I supposed to do? I supposed I was a superhuman. I supposed I could be in three places at once. Then I wanted to engage and they played better if I didn’t watch them. Then I wanted to protect them from falls and they enjoyed exploring more. Then I wanted them to breastfeed and they were healthier if I expressed some and bottlefed at times.
I couldn’t get my head around it.
Then I came to terms about being a shitty mother. I left them to play without me, to hit themselves, to bottle-feed and eat whatever and whenever. I left them in the car when they wanted to stay. I did what I could for their safety, left them the rest, walked around with continuous guilt and prayed that I wouldn’t become their murderer by negligence.
I couldn’t get my head around it.
Then one of them died. He died. He didn’t even have a chance to take risks. I didn’t even have a chance to mess up with him, to have to come to terms with being a shitty mother. He was in the ultimate safety, in my womb, eating what he wanted (olives and sauerkraut), warm, loved. Then we acquired a tummy bug, vomited and sweated. And his little heart stopped. Three weeks later he decided it was time for him to go.
I couldn’t get my head around it.
What was I supposed to do?
Then I got my head around it.
I am not small, weak, incapable, incompetent shitty mother who can’t handle the big things, like falls and feeding. My role is not to provide safety to my children.
I am a big, strong, capable, competent, omnipresent mother who is too overwhelmingly large to get to the small things, like falls and feeding. I can’t influence them, I can’t change the position of their little muscle fibers, the position of their little tongues. I can’t go and pick the virus out of their tissues one by one. I am too big. That’s not my job.
I can’t provide safety. It is impossible. Illnesses, wars, accidents happen. They can get a mental illness and hate or forget me. They can die and then there’s nothing I can do for them any more.
My role as a mother is different. It is to be there. To love. The sunshine that comes from being a mother shines outwards and warms their world… and that’s it! This is what I can do, offer a presence. A dishivelled, tired, yelling, fragrant, uncertain, excited, desperate, loving, broken, raving, creative, willing and incomprehensible environment, be a big person, a person with all humanity inside her veins, filtering the sunshine of life into a rainbow. It’s not interactive and it is not with my will, this comes with the neural changes of womanhood, pregnancy and birth. The sun starts shining with the first bursts of motherly feelings towards a doll. And in the bright world of warmth and energy they can start living, exploring, falling, feeding and dying as their needs and fate dictates.
And this, I did well. After dishivelled, tired, yelling, fragrant, uncertain, excited, desperate, loving, broken, raving, creative, willing and incomprehensible years I didn’t run. I didn’t adopt them out. I didn’t start taking psychiatric pills. I didn’t start drinking. I didn’t head off with a random guy and left them with their father. I am here. I am a good mother.