Happy, clinging & a helpful idea
Sifting through (almost) 7 years of motherhood.
This morning after drop off, I was clicking through photos of myself to try to find a headshot of myself I didn’t hate. I selected my own face (embarrassing) under the “people” options in my photos and started clicking.
In 90% of the photos, my head is squished into one (or both) of my kids’ heads. That, or I’m gripping them tightly — hugging them, pulling them towards me. Often, I’m both squishing my face into their faces + clinging to their bodies. If I notice the camera, I have a goofy big grin that’s twinged with gratitude — thanks for catching this.
Most of all, I look really happy. Like, tired and usually multi-tasking. But happy.
Do you feel like it’s really hard to see yourself, too? I wonder all the time how my kids’ see me, and how they’ll remember current me when they’re all grown up. I am hyper aware, too, of how other people see me — what do they think about how I am managing this meltdown? Are those dagger eyes I feel from everyone about the fact that my kid won’t stop riding his scooter even though we’re inside this coffee shop and I am kind of letting him instead of dragging him out of here because I just really want to order a coffee???
It’s not just all the navel-gazing and social stressing though that makes my self as a mother feel hazy and elusive. Loving this much is pretty consuming, and it obscures a lot. It’s scary sometimes, often chaotic, certainly makes me feel raw, vulnerable, and even more anxious than usual. And of course we’re always worried that we’re bad at it, which muddies the view even more.
Even though my face is usually obscured by baby faces (that morph into toddler faces and somehow into almost-7-year-old faces), clicking through these seven years of photos gave me a pretty clear image of myself right now: I am pretty darn happy. Knowing these kids, being their mom, is big and complex and many things, yes. But, mostly, it’s something I just really love. And in these photos, it totally shows. You can’t miss it.
Do they know how much I love them? I always assumed they couldn’t possibly get it. But after looking through all these thousands of face squishes and bear hugs, I wonder if maybe they do know. Maybe they can feel it. At the very least I know that one day, they can look through these and see it.
Requisite, related parenting thought from yoga class: You knew it was coming, right? A few weeks ago, around Thanksgiving, my teacher mentioned the idea that we choose our parents. It can be a bitter pill, she acknowledged. But choke it down! I ruminated as we sat there, and it didn’t take too long before my mind leapt to what it means to me as a parent; That our kids chose us.
When I was a kid, I had a book about reincarnation called The Mountains of Tibet. (FWIW it’s my favorite kids book about death*, along with Cry Heart, But Never Break, but that one is a little more lugubrious). Towards the end of the book, as part of the process of being reincarnated, the person who dies at the start of the book chooses the people who will be his parents.
It’s a really relieving idea, right? Our pediatrician’s favorite refrain, “you know your kid best,” never sat quite right with me. Especially when they were little babies, I felt so lost all the time. But the idea that our kid(s) chose us works for me; keeping it in mind turns on a little magic button of trust in myself, and flips a switch on very helpful feelings of enough-ness, too.
Maybe consider the idea that your kid(s) chose you; If it’s hard to trust that you’re the right parent for your kid, no worries. Just trust them. If you’re still feeling like it’s all a little blurry maybe look through some pictures, and see if you can see yourself. All those thousands of unflattering live photos; a clinging, incomplete effort to record-keep this most immense love.
Writing, reading, etc.
Over at we’re asking parents to fill out a quick survey about their pandemic parenting experiences. You can take it here!
Just finished Margo’s Got Money Troubles and it was delightful.
Saw Nightbitch. It has kind of a small release, I guess maybe it’s having trouble competing with everything else. Did you see it? I don’t really want to get into it, because we’re going to talk about it on
! It might be nice to go and support Marielle Heller, et al!Stumbled into Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark. It’s a not-new book, but new to me (thanks
!) and I am dying to read it. I think it might be a good balm for the January thing.I’m on bluesky now? We all are?
We’re watching The Diplomat and it took a few episodes to find its groove but now it is very fun and escapist. It’s like a political show that exists in a Top Gun Maverick-style political void. This is a compliment.
*A while ago, I wrote a thing about the best kids books about death with help from amazing children’s librarians. Might be useful, and I can 100% promise that it’s better than that relatively useless Daniel Tiger dead fish episode.