peevish mama

So often it feels like we don’t get to pick what kind of mama we want to be. The way we mother feels like an extension of who we are and that’s about as easy to change as the ebb and flow of the tides. Not that we don’t try. I’m constantly beating myself up, vowing to do this or that differently, falling down, trying again – all of it laced in mother guilt. My mantra: every day is a new day. And sure enough, every day is a new day. Usually, I wake up with tons of energy (post coffee), the well has been mysteriously filled in the dark hours of the night and my children’s soft and sleepy faces are all I need to know I am doing exactly what I should be doing. As the day wears on, however, shit happens and sometimes – often – I end up really far away from my blissful start. And so I begin again. And again. 

On Sunday I had one of those weird “what should I do?” moments that brought my role as a mother into hyper-focus.  I very consciously got to choose how I was going to act, and it was a tad odd, if empowering. I had taken the kids ice skating and since I thought they would just be messing around, I didn’t make them wear their hockey helmets. Before long, Saint James sidled his way into a pick-up game with some boys and their dads: Edina’s finest. I could tell he was jazzed and stretching way beyond his normal level of play. The dads and older boys weren’t wearing helmets, but the kids that looked to be Saint James’ age all were. I grabbed his helmet, picked my way across the ice and called him over. He took one look at the helmet, said he didn’t want to wear it and skated away, chasing the action. I stood for a few seconds holding the helmet in front of me like an offering. 

I could walk away. I could bark after him and force him to put it on. By skating away from me, Saint James had closed the door on my attempt to give him his helmet under the radar screen. Right now – in this moment – what kind of a mother was I going to be?  

I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth. I sighed and walked away. 

He didn’t bully me. I didn’t give in to him. In that moment, I made a choice. A choice between letting my son skate around with his balls intact or grabbing him by those same balls and bending him to my will. I chose not to be the overbearing overprotective mother, knowing full well that if he got hurt, the pain would be uniquely and exquisitely mine.  I thought of his eyes and teeth, exposed to all matter of hard things and sharp edges. I thought of his delicate temples, protected by nothing more than the thin layer of a wool ski hat. I thought of all that is already in his beautiful brain – all that is yet to come.

Why did I walk away like a rejected suitor holding a droopy bouquet? Why did I accept Saint James’ petulant decision and spend the next hour feeling slightly queasy, when it would have been nothing for him to have indulged me and put it on? I don’t know. I guess I can imagine being a boy on the ice with a bunch of better hockey players. And I know – I just know that my voice scraping across that ice would have sounded shrill and unwelcome. No matter how hard I tried to seem casual and cool – no matter how many “buddies” I threw into my cajoling sentences, his cheeks would have burned in the cold air. I chose to let him be. I won’t always make that choice, but in that moment, it just seemed right. Wrong for me. But right for him. So I held my breath, my heart in my throat, until he skated off the ice his face lit with pride, right into my arms.