I'll Eat You Up, I Love You So
posted by Sybil Vane
This summer, which was all about selling the house, finding a new one, moving, prepping for a new job, was also all about me and my daughter. We stopped all our childcare in May, leaving me without any help for the first time since she was 4 mths old. While we were selling the house. And moving. Somewhere with no friends. Mostly this drove me insane, but then sometimes, mostly times when I wasn’t actually with her, I realized it didn’t.
I hardly ever see my kid anymore. I wake her around 6:30, we leave for school/work by 7:45. I pick her up between 4 and 5, we get home between 5 and 6, she goes to bed by 7ish. This no doubt looks like a ton of working parents’ lives but it’s new for me. As a grad student mama, I got by with 20-25 hrs of care a week (not something I recommend) and worked a lot at night, on weekends. I was with my daughter a lot. More than I should have been, I used to think.
To be perfectly honest, it’s hard for me to imagine how, in this version of life, I could find the energy to give her more than 2-3 hours of parenting a day. That feels so terrible to admit. I feel like I barely make it through what I am doing. Am exhausted in the mornings, run around dressing myself, dressing her, packing lunches, feeding the fucking CAT. Evening is much worse, as all the working parents know, with the day’s exhaustion and the fucking dinner and, again, the goddamned cat, and trying to hear about the day. I get some details out of her (“Hey, have you ever heard of Johan Sebastian Bach?” “Did you know the sun makes all the weather?” “When it’s time to stop eating, your brain sends your stomach a message to tell it, but I’m not sure if it goes in an envelope or what.” “Today we learned about how Eve ate the apple that was bad and then they had to die because they were naked.” Ummm, what was that one? Yes. Please look forward to my future post about what counts as “secular Montessori curriculum” in some parts of the country.), but mostly what I get is the whining of death. That you think might kill you. The kind of whining that comes from a kid who is herself frazzled and confused and 4 and is made of poison darts of swine flu and mosquito bites. And I spend most of that period of the day thanking the patriarchal God of the Montessori school that she goes to bed at 7.
And then after I put her to bed, and after I spend the next several hours working and PLAYING WITH THE CAT, I get sad about how little of my day involved my girl. And I get sad about how I want her to feel swallowed by love, and I am too tired to wrap all I have around her. And I feel shitty about how mediocre I was, how little attention I paid, how clear I made it that I can’t stand playing those role-playing games for more than a few minutes, how maybe I should’ve just taken her to the park even though I felt like shit, how I didn’t listen enough. And I go to bed vowing to be different the next day, to find something extra to give her. And I almost never can find it, when the next day comes.
I tried today though. I feel shitty, like maybe getting the flu shitty. When I picked her up today, she immediately started asking if we could hit the grocery store before home for juice and some other bullshit. I told her I felt sick, probably not, but we would re-evaluate when we got in town. I did feel better-ish when we got there, but didn’t want to go, so declined. And obviously this was one of those things that was make-or-break for the 4yr old’s day. It shattered her, not getting to go to the grocery store. She let loose the wailing about how unfair everything is, how she needs to do what she needs to do, how she JUST CAN’T DO THINGS and that makes her crazy. Forever it seemed. In the car. And people, my epic victory is that I didn’t scream. I let a few tears leak out quietly, but I didn’t scream. And when she stopped, I didn’t talk about it anymore, I just told her about how I wanted to read her two books tonight in bed instead of one. And she smiled at me in the mirror, sort of.
And then it was the same old bullshit. She needed help with everything, I tried to get some leftovers heated, my sister needed me on the phone. The cat needed food, the bathwater got sloshed everywhere, hair washing a battle, I didn’t bother to tell her that her tooth brushing job was total shit. She picked two books that are long and that I sort of hated reading. And then I held on to her and she said, “I promise to take care of you.” And I felt the whole day fall apart again.
I mean, is this how it is? Is this just what it is?
I don’t know what this is about exactly, and I meant to end it by segueing into why Where Te Wild Things Are is brilliantly interpreted and brilliantly made. Which it is, but I can’t quite get there now. You can probably imagine how that was going to go, so just fill it in and maybe we can discuss later.
I hardly ever see my kid anymore. I wake her around 6:30, we leave for school/work by 7:45. I pick her up between 4 and 5, we get home between 5 and 6, she goes to bed by 7ish. This no doubt looks like a ton of working parents’ lives but it’s new for me. As a grad student mama, I got by with 20-25 hrs of care a week (not something I recommend) and worked a lot at night, on weekends. I was with my daughter a lot. More than I should have been, I used to think.
To be perfectly honest, it’s hard for me to imagine how, in this version of life, I could find the energy to give her more than 2-3 hours of parenting a day. That feels so terrible to admit. I feel like I barely make it through what I am doing. Am exhausted in the mornings, run around dressing myself, dressing her, packing lunches, feeding the fucking CAT. Evening is much worse, as all the working parents know, with the day’s exhaustion and the fucking dinner and, again, the goddamned cat, and trying to hear about the day. I get some details out of her (“Hey, have you ever heard of Johan Sebastian Bach?” “Did you know the sun makes all the weather?” “When it’s time to stop eating, your brain sends your stomach a message to tell it, but I’m not sure if it goes in an envelope or what.” “Today we learned about how Eve ate the apple that was bad and then they had to die because they were naked.” Ummm, what was that one? Yes. Please look forward to my future post about what counts as “secular Montessori curriculum” in some parts of the country.), but mostly what I get is the whining of death. That you think might kill you. The kind of whining that comes from a kid who is herself frazzled and confused and 4 and is made of poison darts of swine flu and mosquito bites. And I spend most of that period of the day thanking the patriarchal God of the Montessori school that she goes to bed at 7.
And then after I put her to bed, and after I spend the next several hours working and PLAYING WITH THE CAT, I get sad about how little of my day involved my girl. And I get sad about how I want her to feel swallowed by love, and I am too tired to wrap all I have around her. And I feel shitty about how mediocre I was, how little attention I paid, how clear I made it that I can’t stand playing those role-playing games for more than a few minutes, how maybe I should’ve just taken her to the park even though I felt like shit, how I didn’t listen enough. And I go to bed vowing to be different the next day, to find something extra to give her. And I almost never can find it, when the next day comes.
I tried today though. I feel shitty, like maybe getting the flu shitty. When I picked her up today, she immediately started asking if we could hit the grocery store before home for juice and some other bullshit. I told her I felt sick, probably not, but we would re-evaluate when we got in town. I did feel better-ish when we got there, but didn’t want to go, so declined. And obviously this was one of those things that was make-or-break for the 4yr old’s day. It shattered her, not getting to go to the grocery store. She let loose the wailing about how unfair everything is, how she needs to do what she needs to do, how she JUST CAN’T DO THINGS and that makes her crazy. Forever it seemed. In the car. And people, my epic victory is that I didn’t scream. I let a few tears leak out quietly, but I didn’t scream. And when she stopped, I didn’t talk about it anymore, I just told her about how I wanted to read her two books tonight in bed instead of one. And she smiled at me in the mirror, sort of.
And then it was the same old bullshit. She needed help with everything, I tried to get some leftovers heated, my sister needed me on the phone. The cat needed food, the bathwater got sloshed everywhere, hair washing a battle, I didn’t bother to tell her that her tooth brushing job was total shit. She picked two books that are long and that I sort of hated reading. And then I held on to her and she said, “I promise to take care of you.” And I felt the whole day fall apart again.
I mean, is this how it is? Is this just what it is?
I don’t know what this is about exactly, and I meant to end it by segueing into why Where Te Wild Things Are is brilliantly interpreted and brilliantly made. Which it is, but I can’t quite get there now. You can probably imagine how that was going to go, so just fill it in and maybe we can discuss later.
Labels: mama
Posted at 5:25 PM
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