“9 kids?! Have you had your sanity checked?”
The scene was all too familiar. Small talk with a fellow soccer mom inevitably leading to casual questions about my due date and the size of our family. Usually I took this curiosity in stride, smiling gratefully for the sympathetic “bless your heart” I’d get from a kind southern sister or answering for the zillionth time that “No, we’re not Catholic,” and “Yes, this baby was planned, just like the others.” But this interrogation felt different. This Soccer Mama, who had recently divorced and relocated from California, did not seem intrigued by my lifestyle, and when she lowered her glitzy sunglasses and steadily met my gaze through her perfectly unsmudged mascara, I faltered. My optimistic speech about the adventures of homeschooling half a dozen lively boys and raising two lovely girls was forgotten, and I bumbled out something silly... Suddenly I envied this stranger’s gorgeous highlights, her gym membership, and her clothing budget. I felt frumpy in my borrowed maternity sundress with spaghetti sauce stains and wished that I could hide my puffy ankles. For a few minutes I even resented my baby bump and felt like, given the option, I could trade this whole gig in an instant for a pair of skinny jeans and my favorite sushi combo..
Then came the dreaded question about how we could afford such a big family. My heart sank to my feet, which were barefoot and squirming uncomfortably in the buggy grass. We had just arrived home from our most recent “vacation” – 8 exhausting days with 50+ hours of them spent in a packed van, managing squabbles and motion sickness, handing out dozens of homemade sandwiches, and humbly receiving the generous hospitality of extended family who packed our traveling circus into every spare corner of their homes. Just like our previous vacations/staycations, there were no sunny beaches or theme parks or nice restaurants. Just another week of creative measures to make this all fit into our overextended schedule and budget, followed by a whole lot of sleep-deprivation. I forced a brave smile and starting telling her how I’d just converted my garage into a consignment shop (where I had the luxury of shopping for free whenever the kids needed clothes) when I was rudely interrupted by shrieks of, “Hi, Mom! Hi, Mom! Me’s poopy, Mom!” My disheveled, chocolate-covered twins descended on me, implicating me as the mother who failed at both potty training and bathing them. I half-prayed that I was the only one noticing the farm-like odor that followed them and apologized to my “friend” for their frantic chatter. She crossed her perfectly tanned legs, picked up her smartphone, and benevolently assured me that she was just tuning them right out.
During one of the rest stops on our eternal road trip, I snatched a few minutes to scroll through the transcript for an E-course I hadn’t gotten around to reading called, “Letting Go of Perfect,” and was startled by author Amanda Morgan’s simple question, “Why do we feel obligated to allow complete strangers and swaths of social media avatars into our audience [of people who evaluate our parenting]?” Her wise suggestion read, “Rather than a huge stadium full of spectators in your imaginary audience, make room for a select few at a conference table or even an intimate dinner table. This limited seating creates a place for constructive discussion, not detached voyeurism…This doesn’t mean we only listen to people who will say what we want to hear, but we have to recognize that we simply don’t have the bandwidth to entertain every parenting opinion in the universe. There just are not enough seats at this table. There is a place for valuable advice and input, but those come from people with whom we have a relationship of trust and who are willing to share from a place of empathy and support, rather than judgement and shame. Those are the only people we can afford to save seats for. When we’re consumed by too many opinions and too much pressure to measure up, it takes away from our ability to do the work that really matters. We have to be able to quiet the crowd — both real and imaginary, the critics within and without — and tune in to our kids.” How could I have forgotten this precious advice so quickly? Why had I so willingly let this stranger claim a front row seat in my “audience,” watch a few clips of my life story, and then shame me with her 1 star review?”
This particularly trying stage of pregnancy and motherhood has brought back vivid memories of last fall when I trained for a marathon with my oldest son. With his teenage metabolism, Ethan was having a hard time maintaining stamina on our long distance runs. So, neglecting the advice of experienced trainers, I tossed aside our Electrolyte-filled snacks and packed some high-calorie protein-packed peanut butter balls for our next long run. This proved to be a huge mistake. At the 16 mile mark, we choked down these sticky wads. What little made it to our stomachs just parked there and churned miserably during the rest of our run. This was simply the wrong snack for athletes. Since that painful gastric experience, I’ve often compared some of the insidious morsels of social media with these nasty protein balls. Rarely does this type of input nourish the spirit and energize us for our “race.”
On the morning of our marathon, the conditions were less than ideal – temperatures hovering just above freezing with a constant drizzle. By 23 miles, every inch of my body was screaming for me to stop, and I wondered if I could possibly muster the energy for the last 3.2 miles. It was then that I spied a cheerful volunteer, soaked to her skin, smiling, and holding up a sign which read, “I’m cheering for YOU, random stranger!” Suddenly I felt my inspiration and strength return. This dear woman had crawled out of bed at an ungodly hour and ventured into the rain that morning, just so she could cheer for ME! I wonder if, had her sign read “Are you insane? Why bother?” if I would have been able to finish my race.
Last winter I hit one of these “23 mile walls” emotionally and spiritually when the tiny baby I was expecting slipped away from me on Christmas night. This private ache threatened to swallow me, and I made the choice to disconnect from Facebook (with its flood of cheerful baby announcements and overabundance of holiday cheer) and entrust myself to the loving support of a few precious friends who nourished me with hopeful words and never rushed me through the process of grieving and healing. Not surprisingly these dear ones cheered the loudest when I announced that I had been crazy enough to get pregnant again.
This week I am entering a brand new, exciting, slightly terrifying season of motherhood. My oldest kids are heading to college as a junior and freshman, and I am starting up our 15th year of homeschooling, with a class of students ranging from preschool to high school and a newborn on the way. My home, which I once dreamed would resemble a Martha Stewart magazine, looks a bit more like Peter Pan’s Island of Lost Boys. Yet, by some miracle, my kids are bursting with excitement to get back to our books. I guess that somewhere, mingled with the temporary bouts of insanity and runny noses and laundry mountains, we are living out a unique and beautiful story which I wouldn’t change for the world.
