Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) (8 page)

Having a teenager in the house has been detrimental to my self-esteem. Sometimes, I want to treat her exactly the way she treats me, but that would be child abuse.

—Scary Mommy Confession #252463

I
'm a horrible mother. My kids watch too much television, they eat too much junk food, and they don't participate in enough extracurricular activities. They have poor sleeping habits because Jeff and I were too lazy to put them to bed properly when we had our chance, and sometimes they wear shorts in November.

I'm a shitty wife. I'm always cranky and frequently take it out on my husband. I reserve my few moments of pleasantness for my kids, and so all my husband gets is “No,” “Are you kidding me?!” and “Do what I said.” Sex these days is like a drive-in movie: open for your viewing pleasure, but you're on your own.

I'm so fat. I need a tummy tuck, and my upper arms have a better sense of movement than my feet. I vacillate between three different clothing sizes. And by vacillate, I mean I ONCE hit the smaller of the three in the last nine years.

I can't even count the number of times that thoughts like this have raced through my head. I'm a mother, a wife, and my own person, but it's rare that I am satisfied with my performance in one area, let alone all three. My failures seem so obvious—I assume everyone must think the same of me. Strangely, though, every time I've ever voiced these feelings, I've been told the same thing: I'm too hard on myself. I'm my own worst critic.

This, my friends, is one of the most pervasive and pernicious lies of motherhood. I've said it, you've said it, and it's just plain bullshit.

There is nobody harder on a mom than her fellow mother. It starts bright and early with pregnancy. As if the symptoms you're suffering weren't bad enough, when you are expecting, everyone's mission becomes to knock you down. Not literally, of course, because that would be attempted manslaughter, but they will try to knock you down nonetheless. They will insult your appearance, question your choice of lunch meat, and casually note just how much weight you have gained.

Once the baby comes, it's like you've signed on a dotted line agreeing to put every decision you make into the public domain for open critique. Your baby's name, your decision to breastfeed or
not
to breastfeed, the sleep habits you're enforcing . . . everything is simply an opportunity for people to stick their noses in your business and judge away like it's a spectator sport.

And that's just what we say to each other's faces. The
behind-the-back talk is even harsher. But because we're mothers, we find a way to mask our judgment in feigned concern and helpfulness.

We once lived in a neighborhood where, on the first night under our new roof, the queen bee of the subdivision gave us an illustrated list (I kid you not) of our surrounding neighbors. Each house had a little notation next to their name: #2703 hosts the Easter egg hunts and fights loudly; #2708 are going through a divorce, but it's amicable; #2714 babysits, has a Fourth of July bash, but passed lice around to the whole Girl Scout troop. As she walked in with her tray of brownies and neon nails, I wondered what notes she was taking at my place. #2601: Appears not to have showered in three days, bottle-feeds her infant, and lets the older one watch too much TV—SHITTY MOTHER, her note likely screamed.

Unfortunately, the critiquing doesn't end with other mothers. Kids can be just as brutal, especially our own. I'll be innocently showering first thing in the morning when a midget body will barge into the bathroom, and upon seeing my figure in the shower, run out screaming, like I have scarred him or her for life. It's not uncommon for the child, whoever it is, to fall into a fit of giggles and call for his siblings. “Lily! Evan! Ben! Mommy is naaaaakkked. Come see!!” If I'm
really
lucky, all three will stand outside the shower pointing and laughing like I'm a zoo animal taking a dump.

Once I get out of the shower, time permitting, I slather myself in lotion. Should I be lucky enough to have an audience, they will inevitably point to my thighs. “What's that purple squiggle, Mommy?” A spider vein, I sigh. “That one, too?” Yes, that one,
too, honey. “Over here, too?” Yes, my darling, that's what they're called. Let's move on.

“Okay. What's this?”

It's a stretch mark. That's a scar. That's a vein. That's cellulite. That's hair. That's a wrinkle. That's a bruise. That's . . . crap . . . what
is
that? Just let me get dressed alone, all right?

Speaking of getting dressed, Lily, my child who scoffs at J.Crew's Crewcuts and lusts over the Justice catalog, frequently greets me with equally colorful commentary on my clothes. She tells me my clothes don't match, my clothes make me look “flat,” or the color of my sweater is “kinda ugly.” She is the Joan Rivers of the house, and she is ruthless.

The patch of white hairs, the stubble on my legs, the heels in need of exfoliating . . . nothing goes unnoticed by my lovely children. At the end of the day, as I read the boys bedtime stories, Evan inevitably focuses on my face. “What's
that
dot?” he will ask, pointing to the tiniest pore or a birthmark or a chicken pox scar. One by one, he counts them like he's counting sheep, falling asleep to the comfort of my imperfections.

It's a miracle that any mother has the slightest bit of self-esteem left after the criticism our children and peers put us through on a daily basis. If men were treated like this, I'm quite sure that they would just crawl back into bed for the rest of their lives and mope about their feelings being hurt. But not us. We can take whatever the world throws at us and power on. Our skin isn't thick, it's impenetrable. Or getting there, at least.

And, may I just say, you're way too hard on yourself. We all think you're doing a great job.

My number-one reason for not wanting to have a third baby is that I pee my pants pretty much every day since my second was born two years ago. At this rate, my kids will soon be more potty-trained than me.

—Scary Mommy Confession #117879

I
was feeling pretty cocky back in February 2006. I'd successfully survived the first two years of motherhood with Lily and effortlessly brought a new baby into the house. The first time I had a baby I felt like the proverbial deer in the headlights, but this time I was an Experienced Mother, and my baby was clearly the child of an Experienced Mother. He slept through the night in his room immediately because I actually let him, and he was content almost twenty-four hours a day because I wasn't fussing with him constantly. With Lily, I waited almost a month before venturing past the front stoop, but when Ben
was a baby, the three of us were out and about immediately. I didn't panic over silly things like stained Onesies and dirty car seats. I laughed at first-time mothers who used things like wipe warmers and bottle sanitizers and Diaper Genies. I relished being on the experienced side of the fence. I had this motherhood thing down.

My standing as Experienced Mother suffered a blow when I found out I was expecting another baby when Ben was only a year old. Sure, I could handle the two of them like a pro, but would three be as easy? I wasn't so sure. A neighbor and mother of four convinced me that I could handle it. Actually, she went even further: “Once you have two kids, you'll barely even notice another one,” she confidently said. You'd think I'd learned my lesson about listening to people after that nurse's sage wisdom a few years before, but I hadn't. I ate up her every word.

Maybe I'd be like the Duggers, I thought, popping out a baby every year. If it was as effortless as it sounded, why not? I'd get to hold and enjoy sweet newborns and then move on to the next pregnancy while my older kids raised the younger ones. Didn't sound like such a bad gig.

And then Evan arrived. His birth would prove indicative of his entire existence. Unlike Ben, who came out clean and smiling, Evan was a bloody mess. Literally. Not only was he covered in baby goo, but a blood vessel in the umbilical cord popped as he made his way out and the entire room was sprayed in bright red blood. It was straight out of a bad horror movie and the perfect entrance for the baby who would change my world as I knew it.

The dynamic of going from two kids to three kids is kind of
like going from pulling up to Portofino, Italy, in a beautiful yacht in perfect, cloudless weather to finding yourself on the
Titanic
after its collision with the iceberg. You know the scene in the movie where the passengers are running for their lives as the boat tilts ninety degrees, and if they're not in a raft by that point, they're toast and they know it? That's what having three kids is like for me. On a good day.

In my defense, it's really a matter of physical limitations: A mother's body is clearly built for two kids. Two arms to wrap around their shoulders. Two hands to hold. Two ears to listen with. Two knees to bounce children on. Two hips to balance them on. Two cheeks to be kissed. It doesn't take a mathematician to see that something doesn't add up when you throw a third kid into the mix.