On Motherhood

I love being a mother. I love my children more than I thought it was possible to love anything. Every day I get to see them and talk to them and hug them is a day that I am very lucky. When Ironflower says, "I love you, Mommy" or Lovebug gives me a hug I am filled with a happiness that I only thought possible with the benefit of prescription painkillers.

But when I hear a mother say something like, "Every moment is a joy," I want to smack her. Not only does that statement indicate that the doctor did a lobotomy during her c-section, it's a nasty thing to say around pre-mothers. You hear enough statements like that and you feel like there's something wrong with you when, as a new mother, you wind up crying at 3 am along with the inconsolable baby.

Every moment is worth it. Every moment means you are lucky. But some moments still suck. My children are real, fallible little human beings, not perfect little dolls dropped from heaven, and when they throw up on me I don't feel joy. (In fact, no children are actually dropped in from heaven, they all make mistakes and have flaws and it's better to accept it now then when the school is calling about your child's bratty, bullying behavior for the second time that day) I suspect that no mother actually feels joy when her child is sick because even if s/he is not actually throwing up on you, the kid is SICK. There's no joy when something is wrong and you can't fix it, let me tell you.

So, new and future mommies, take heart: not every moment will be a joy. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, or on prescription painkillers. No child is perfect, except in that s/he is a perfectly flawed, complex little creature. Sometimes you will wish you believed in spanking. Sometimes you will wish you could just have quiet for one minute. Sometimes you will imagine torturing The Wonder Pets. But that's all NORMAL.

And stay away from the competitive Stepford Mommies. As they expound on their joy in reading Hop on Pop for the ten thousandth time after they pick little Aidan after his French class where the teacher says he has such an affinity for languages never before seen in a two year old, know this: Aidan will be in reform school before his eighteenth birthday.