7 things I’ve learned from motherhood

1. After you leave the hospital, in the middle of the night, when the baby won’t sleep…it’s all you. (And your husband, of course, if you’ve got a good one.) But the point is, from now on, when that little face looks around for food, comfort, nurturing…you are the one. And it’s a humbling, beautifully terrifying prospect.

We’ve loved our daughter since the day she was born, but because she came to us in a different way, I’ll never forget this experience:

When she was almost three months old I went to a luncheon. Many of the women there wanted to see and hold her, and she was getting passed around quite a bit. I don’t know if something happened or if she was just getting tired of all the passing, but she began to cry and look around. Finally she found me and her eyes locked on mine; she smiled through her tears as if to say: “Mommy, I found you! Save me!” All I could think of at that moment, was “Oh my gosh, she’s looking for me!” It was an emotional experience for me for obvious reasons. She knew I was her mother. And when she saw me, she knew she would be okay.

(First lesson: you are The One.)

2. Surviving the sleep deprivation.
There were many, many years of no sleep. I really began to wonder if there would be permanent consequences to my constant state of sleepiness. When I look back on the worst of it, I don’t know how I functioned as well as I did. If you’ve been through it, you know it is a tiredness that you feel in your bones. But I did it. And my children survived my groggy crankiness. {And as for the permanent damage, I only twitch and drool a little bit now and then…just kidding, sort of.}

(Second lesson: you can do anything. You are a mother.)

3. Things are always better when seen through a child’s eyes:

Snow,

Swings,

Mud,

Christmas,

Disneyland…

I’ll never forget when we took the kids to Disneyland; the first time with all five of them. The oldest was 10 and the baby, 10 months. We got there at night, and we had a multi-day ticket, so we went for the hour or so before the park closed. We were just in time for the big parade. There we were, squished in with all the other hundreds of parents and children who happened to be on that one little corner of the street. I was stressed and frazzled from trying to maneuver our double stroller through the crowds; and I was crazy from trying to keep my extremely active and curious 5- and 6-year-olds from climbing up trees and railings and lamp posts, and from inadvertently wandering away.

But when the music started, and the characters began to leap and dance and sing their way down the street, the children were magically transfixed. I saw the delight and wonder in their eyes. And I stood there witnessing it. In the middle of all those other crazy parents. With tears streaming down my face at the sheer joy of the moment.

(Third lesson: childhood is magical. And for a few short years in between my own childhood and motherhood, I had forgotten for a moment.)

Nod, be present, and listen

When my sons were taking piano lessons, I decided to steal the motivational technique of my first teacher, Mrs. Childs, and reward them with a candy bar whenever they memorized a piece. For me, chocolate has always been wildly motivating; perhaps this is why, according to my mother, no one ever had to nag me to practice.

At the time of this story, my sons were seven and ten, my father had just died, and my mother was dying. I felt that I was failing her–and everyone else in my life–in a multitude of ways on a daily, even hourly, basis, and was so desperate for solace that I decided to make one last attempt at psychotherapy. In the Midwest, where I was raised, the accepted credo is “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Hardly an attitude that fosters the kind of work that needs to occur in a therapist’s office.

This therapist, however, was different. Her technique was unusual. She’d get me talking–they all do that–but when I let my guard down and became loose-lipped enough to let slip with something honest, something vaguely not-nice, i.e. “I’m mad at her,” the therapist had me repeat more potent versions of that statement (“I’m angry at my mother for getting cancer,” or “I’m so mad at you, Mom, for dying!” etc.) over and over again, while at the same time making little tapping motions on the backs of my hands, the top of my head, the center of my chest. I’d cry. I’d feel crummy for awhile. But through the course of the session, eventually I’d move through and beyond that not-nice feeling to a place of calm, a place where – for some reason – I could at least function. It helped.

One afternoon, when my eldest son Noah failed to demonstrate that he’d memorized “Bill Grogan’s Goat,” he was told that chocolate would not be forthcoming – not today anyway, but surely tomorrow, because he almost had it, just a couple of notes, a little bit more practice, he was so close!

He burst into tears.

“What?” I cried. My son’s response was so sudden, so out of proportion that I wondered if he’d physically hurt himself. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“It’s not fair!” he wailed, shrugging off my attempts to hug him. “It’s not fair…”

Exacerbating Noah’s misery was the fact that his brother Sam had already finished his practice session and–having successfully memorized “Go Tell Aunt Rhody”–was sitting a few feet away on the sofa, blithely consuming his Almond Joy. I wish I could say that I had the good sense to ask him to remove himself to the kitchen. Maybe I did. I don’t remember.

After telling Noah how sorry I was that he felt sad, I went on to explain that it actually was fair, reminding him this was our policy when it came to practicing. What really wouldn’t be fair would be if I gave him a candy bar when he hadn’t memorized his piece.

This did not comfort him.

“But it’s not fair!” he repeated. “Sam’s songs are easier than mine!”

“That’s true, but when Sam is ten like you, he’ll have harder songs, and then –”

“It’s not fair!” Noah proclaimed again, head shaking, tears falling. “It’s not fair, it’s not FAIR!”

Okay, I thought. Not working.

Remembering another therapist from years ago, the one who encouraged me to think of intensely negative feelings as temporary, like billowy clouds in a variable sky, I said, “Okay then, let’s pretend that this big feeling of Unfair is a huge puffy cloud, and we’re going to blow it away.” Noah paused and frowned, still sniffling, but seemed game. “Are you ready? Are you ready to take a big breath with me and blow that huge Unfair Cloud away?”

He quieted long enough for us to inhale and exhale, our conjoined breaths creating an impressive gale force wind which sent several dust bunnies careening across the living room floor.

There was a pause, and then a resumption of inconsolable sobs.

That was when I remembered that the emotions-as-clouds metaphor hadn’t worked any better for me than it did for my son.

“It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s JUST NOT FAIR!”

I continue to be amazed by what a dullard I can be when it comes to my own children, how my response as a parent can sometimes lead me to relate to my sons in a completely unhelpful–and uncharacteristic–manner. Would I treat one of my friends like this? Would I try to talk her out of her feelings? Of course not. I’d commiserate. I’d buy her a glass of wine. I’d sit and listen. I’d let her moan to her heart’s content.

It’s not fair.

Finally I remembered the technique my therapist had been using with me: encouraging me to repeat the unvarnished, unattractive, unreasonable truth.

So I started to say, “You’re right, honey, it’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

Noah joined in. We sang the It’s Not Fair lament for a few minutes and then, eventually, the sky cleared, the clouds passed, the tears ceased. Sam finished his Almond Joy without further notice. Noah got past his grief and went on to memorize (and earn a Three Musketeers) another day.

Now, when my kids let forth with an uncensored expression of unreasonable emotional truth–-“I had a scary, bad thought” or “This homework is so pointless” or “I’m never going to get this!” etc.–I try not to talk it away with reason, or blow it away with a gale force exhalation. I try to remember to simply nod my head, be present, and listen. So much of childhood is baffling. So much of what our children experience emotionally is not nice.

We’ve abandoned the candy bar reward, by the way, as well as piano lessons. Noah, now thirteen, plays the trumpet, Sam plays trombone, and I do what most parents do when it comes to motivating their kids to practice: I nag.

I wish I didn’t have to. My mom never had to nag me to practice.

It is so unfair.

Stephanie Kallos lives in Seattle with her husband and sons. She is the author of two published novels, BROKEN FOR YOU and SING THEM HOME. Her website is: www.stephaniekallos.com