Tag: Motherhood

Some Observations

Months go by very quickly. It seems like I just paid my cellphone bill yesterday when the next one shows up in my inbox. I don’t understand how this happens. It feels like I’m always struggling to keep up. When I go online to pay, I check to make sure that in fact it was a month since I last paid, and, lo and behold, it has been. How did that happen?

On a related note, I pay a ridiculous amount of money for phones, internet and streaming services. There has to be a better way, but that would mean taking the time to research things thoroughly to figure it out. I think I am probably paying for streaming services that include other services that I pay for separately. Does that make any sense? I am probably double paying for Hulu. But it is all so complicated, and it gives me a headache, so I throw up my hands. Someday, I promise myself, I will sort it all out. Of course, they probably have a service for that – but then you’d have to pay for it. I find it very frustrating. And these companies are probably counting on our throwing up our hands to make more money.

And then there is the confusion about which streaming service plays which program. I might only watch one program on a given service – that also makes no sense. And there is almost nothing I watch on cable, except for HGTV, SNY (the Mets baseball channel) and the tennis channel. Then there is Gary’s penchant for having some version of Law and Order playing in the background for hours each evening. Sometimes I put my foot down and say that episode was just on, please find something else. But, then there is nothing else worth watching so it is back to Law and Order. So, I guess we do use cable. But it should be more straight forward. I imagine eventually, with consolidations and such, that we will be back to the equivalent of three major broadcast networks. After all, there is only so much content we can absorb.

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I just brought my car in for service. It is a Honda Accord hybrid. Aside from needing an oil change, a light came on telling me my acoustic system wasn’t working. I drove around with that message for a while since it didn’t seem to be a critical thing to the functioning of the car. If you haven’t driven a hybrid, when it is in electric mode the engine is close to silent. To make others, especially pedestrians, aware of the car, it generates a sound – so they are alerted to its presence. My car sounded like it was singing. A regular car motor you can hear. Well, the singing stopped. The part will cost $248.00 to replace, not including labor. I am not excited about spending that amount of money, but it doesn’t seem right to be putting people at risk if I don’t get it fixed. It is always something. And it always ends up costing more than $200. Sometimes it feels like we hemorrhage money. And, I can’t complain because we have the resources to pay for it. I feel for folks, the vast majority frankly, who don’t have that luxury. We used to be in that position where we lived paycheck to paycheck – it is very stressful. No one wants to hear me complain given my privilege, but I can’t help but comment on how crazy it is.

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I’ll close this blog post by noting that we are coming up on 4 months since my mom passed away. The pangs of grief that hit me come as a surprise, though they shouldn’t. I was thinking the other day about how unusual Mom was. Dad died when Mom was only 71. At that point they were living most of the time in Florida. Mom had always wanted to live in New York City, but Dad had no interest. When he passed, thanks to Mom’s sister-in-law Clair’s ingenuity, she was able to sublet an apartment from an NYU law professor in Greenwich Village for the summer. She did this for probably four or five summers, until various things made it impractical. During those summers she went to see shows – sometimes a matinee and an evening performance on the same day. She went to museums, not just the major ones. She read the New York Times arts pages looking for interesting exhibits. She invited her grandchildren and their friends to visit and stay over. She cooked them pasta from a neighborhood shop that made it fresh. Most women I know wouldn’t be able to do that. Yes, they could cook the pasta, but not the rest of it. Many women I know wouldn’t go to NYC alone – and not necessarily out of fear of crime. They would just be afraid of taking it on – all of it, negotiating the crowds, knowing where to go, etc., etc. Granted Mom had her sister-in-law nearby and her children to help out, but in a day-to-day way she was on her own and she reveled in it. I am happy that I have inherited some of that. I think nothing of driving down to the city or elsewhere by myself. She was a terrific role model. I believe my daughter has inherited that combination of confidence and curiosity that allows us to do what might be uncomfortable for others. Hopefully it will be a gift that keeps on giving.

While my relationship with Mom could be complicated, I am lucky that I got to be her daughter.

Four generations – what a great day that was!

Eulogy for Mom

Note: I have written a great deal about my mom and posted some of her essays on this blog. She was an avid reader, supporter and contributor to this effort. After putting up a long fight for life, she passed away on Tuesday, February 27, 2024 in Freehold, New Jersey. Though we are broken hearted, we are relieved that she is no longer suffering. Here is the eulogy that I offered at her funeral service.

First, I must say thank  you, Mom. I was not the easiest child to parent, more specifically to mother. I was sensitive, self-conscious and insecure. I was not blessed with the innate optimism that Mom had. Mom had her work cut out for her – something I did not fully appreciate until I became a mother myself. I would like to share two stories of her successes.

I had a truly terrible teacher in 6th grade – and in those days in NYC you had one teacher for virtually all the subjects. It made for a long, unhappy day. My best friend and I decided we had had enough and planned to play hooky. And, we did. Her apartment was empty during the day and we had a fine time. Some kids might look for trouble – we baked cupcakes, had a food fight and watched TV. Her older sister came home early and found us. I was afraid my parents would find out so I fessed up to Mom when she got home from work. She didn’t get angry, she didn’t punish me. She told me if I ever got so distressed to the point that I needed a break, to tell her and she would let me stay home. I never did take her up on that – the idea that I could was enough of a comfort. I knew she trusted and supported me.

The other story was again in the midst of a trying time in August of 1975. I had cut short working at a summer camp because I was not comfortable with the drug use and partying that surrounded me there. My parents welcomed me home. Aside from that, my grandmother, my father’s mom, was seriously ill in the hospital. One night I couldn’t sleep, my heart racing, I woke Mom. She comforted me as best she could – reminding me of the positive things in our lives and she suggested that we plan a sweet sixteen for me. Mom always believed in making the best of bad times. I was nervous at the prospect of a party– would friends come? She planned one of the all-time great parties. It was a mystery bus ride – my friends tried to guess where we were going. We went to see The Fantasticks off Broadway in Greenwich Village, we had fried chicken dinners on the bus, and returned home to make our own sundaes. I had a sign in book where my friends and family wrote kind and loving messages – I still have that book – I still read that book. It was a revelation to me – a little like Sally Field when she cried, “you like me, you really like me!” when she won the Oscar. Mom, you did good.

Mom wasn’t perfect and she knew that – she could be very hard on herself. I think I knew her in a slightly different way than my brothers – maybe being her daughter she more readily shared other parts of herself, the less optimistic side. But one of her great messages was that we should always be learning and striving to be better. That we could improve ourselves. She believed that until her dying day. That may have been the greatest gift she gave me – the belief that we can grow and evolve if we are open to it, if we work at it.

I am so grateful to Mom. Many of you know I write a blog and I share stories on it that are sometimes painful and, in some cases, may have been difficult for Mom to read. But she only encouraged me. She read what I wrote. She loved it. She appreciated my honesty. Another gift.

So, Mom, you were a wonderful human being and you raised three good human beings – is there a better legacy? I think not. We will continue to pay it forward. We love you and will miss you terribly, but you have earned your rest. I hope your spirit is reunited with all those you loved so much. Rest in peace and love, Mom.

Mom on her 80th birthday

The Hardest Job

I visited with my mom the other day. She is 88 years old. I asked her what she remembered about becoming a first-time mother.

I had just come back from helping my daughter, who recently gave birth to a baby girl, her first child. Caring for my newborn granddaughter, changing her diaper, soothing her when she fussed, brought back powerful memories of my own introduction to motherhood. I was curious how my mom remembered her early days after her firstborn, my older brother Steven, arrived.

Mom gave birth to Steven in an Air Force hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1955. When I asked her how she felt at the time, she responded, with some hesitancy, “I was frightened.”

I was surprised by Mom’s response, and, at the same time, I wasn’t. If asked how I felt upon being released from the hospital in 1987 with my newborn daughter I would have said, ‘Terrified.’

We don’t usually admit to those feelings. We are supposed to be overjoyed. For me, at least in the beginning, the fear outweighed the joy. It felt like such a huge responsibility; one I had no previous training to take on. I felt woefully inadequate.

Mom went on to tell me a story, one I had heard before, but was eager to hear again. Before they sent her home, the nurse showed her how to diaper the baby and gave her other instructions. While explaining, the nurse took Steven by his feet and flipped him over on the bed! He appeared unfazed by the motion, he landed safely. “He isn’t as fragile as you think,” the nurse told my stunned mother.

It is hard to imagine a nurse doing that when I had my daughter in 1987. Though Mom took some comfort from the nurse’s demonstration, she couldn’t help but wonder about her ability to meet the needs of the tiny, living, needy creature entrusted to her care.

In the 1950s women were not encouraged to breast feed. My brothers and I were bottle-fed formula from the get-go. During that recent conversation Mom told me the idea of nursing made her uncomfortable, she didn’t consider the possibility. Since bottle-feeding was the norm in that era, I don’t think she felt any guilt. When I became a mom, it was expected that you breastfed. It was assumed that unless you were physically unable to, you did it. I could be remembering wrong – it is possible it wasn’t quite that black and white, but that was my perception. I received some guidance from the nurse while I was in the hospital to get me started, and fortunately, I was able to successfully do it without much physical complication. That doesn’t mean there weren’t other complications. I remember being exhausted, on the edge of depletion. It seemed as soon as I finished a feeding it was time to do it again.

Tired anyone? Me holding Leah – at least one of us was sleeping

My husband and I decided, after two weeks, to introduce a bottle of formula so that he could take a middle of the night feeding. Despite hearing something about ‘nipple confusion,’ we decided to risk it for my sanity. Though I believed we did the right thing for us, I didn’t widely share our approach given the prevailing attitudes of the day.

I don’t recall getting much guidance or support navigating these issues. In a way, I envied the fact that my mom didn’t have to deal with the question of whether to breastfeed or not. She had confidence that a formula-fed baby would be just fine. By the 1980s the decision became fraught – there are extremists (as there are about everything in our society these days) who insist that a woman must do it given the evidence that breast milk helps the baby’s immune system. It is only in the last year or two that there is recognition that we should not be so dogmatic. So many things come into play. Nursing can be unbelievably time consuming. In the first days and weeks after birth it can be every two hours, leaving little time for sleep or physical recovery. Some women experience pain or have supply issues (some women who produce milk worry ceaselessly about whether it is sufficient). Others are fortunate to find it relatively easy and experience the emotional reward of bonding with their baby – but most women I know, though they ultimately may have felt fulfilled by doing it, had a bumpy road getting there. The process can be hard without adding the collective judgment of society.

Writing this in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe and deprive women of their right to choose, I see a consistent theme. Women shoulder huge responsibilities in bringing forth new life, but we are not supported in that work (yes, I called it work, labor is called that for a reason).

The myriad ways in which our culture fails us is breathtaking. From inadequate access to health care (from prenatal to aftercare for mother and baby), to the history of failing to research women’s health issues, to the lack of understanding of the demands of those first few months, and finally, on a fundamental level, not valuing us, women often feel alone and overwhelmed. Though I am well past new motherhood, all of those feelings come rushing back as I watch my daughter go through it, especially in the context of the court’s repudiation of women. I feel the anxiety and weight of the responsibility in the pit of my stomach.

Being a mother is the hardest job I ever had (and still have). I believe, from what I know of my grandmothers and mother, they would agree. Our society needs to reprioritize its values. Mothering, and all forms of caretaking, must move up many rungs. It deserves better pay (sort of a joke since mothers aren’t paid, but we should assign it value). Childcare should be far more financially rewarding. But, perhaps even more than that, the work of mothering deserves more respect. Mother’s Day is a trifling excuse for the recognition that is due to those who take on the role.

It goes without saying that the government has no place in deciding whether a woman becomes one. I am well aware that some are not up to the task; all the more reason to support reproductive choice and change the way we view and assist mothers. It does take a village to raise a healthy child. When will we accept that and make policy decisions accordingly? I hope for my granddaughters’ sakes we begin the change now.