On Being Mom

I love my children with all my heart. I have twin boys, aged 7, going on 16, going on 2. They are big, blond, cute, funny, smart, and a royal pain in the ass.

There, I said it. Most kids are a pain in the ass a lot of the time. I think we could relieve many parents and children from the unrealistic expectations which we put on them if we could more openly acknowledge a fundamental principle of parenting: it's often no fun at all.

I left a thriving career as an attorney in part because I felt perpetually inadequate as a mother. Parenting is very demanding, and so is lawyering. My clients expected me to be on-call 24 hours a day. So did my kids. Obviously, my clients paid more, but I felt that being with my kids after school, and being mentally present, as opposed to on the phone or the computer, was more important. So here I am: being a mom, and trying to teach/write/go to school on the off-hours.

Yesterday was a particularly tough day. The boys griped at me since the moment I picked them up from school. "Did you bring us a treat?" they demanded as they got in the car. "Why don't you ever give us a treat anymore?"

Actually, I did have the aforementioned "treat" -- the coveted Fruit By the Foot, 3 feet of compressed sugar and food coloring sprinkled with a bit of apple juice, so General Mills can put the word "fruit" in the title to relieve parental guilt about plying them with candy.

As I handed them the box -- with a stern lecture about saying thank you and appreciating small gestures, instead of demanding them -- a fight promptly ensued over who got what flavor. This was a completely unnecessary altercation, as it was an unopened "variety pack" with two of each flavor. Since they could each have only one, they could both have what they wanted, no risk of shortage, and p.s., they both like different flavors anyway. Nonetheless, at least in the world I live in, there is apparently a great deal of risk of UNFAIRNESS, so there is always a hue and cry arising over some perceived lack there of: "That's not fair!" is definitely the team motto.

Lest you think that I am raising untamed heathens with no discipline whatsoever, let me assure you that the skirmish concluded with another stern warning from me that there would no treats from me for a few days, because of the lack of gratitude and needless arguing. This prompted a chorus of "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much," and "It's not my fault, he started it" (our other team motto).

We got home from school around 3:45, and there were demands all around for snacks. These demands were not met, of course, until I got the required "please" in front of the "Make me some popcorn!" From there, I dealt with video games (25 minutes each, take turns, no arguing, hitting, or feet stomping when your turn is up), homework:

"You won't help me! You NEVER help me!"

Me (calmly): "I'm happy to help, but I'm not going to DO your homework for you. Do the reading, then we'll talk about it."

"NO!"

"Do not raise your voice."

"I hate homework, my teacher is SO STUPID!"

(Less calm): "Do NOT disrespect teachers in this house!"

"You NEVER help me!" (tears of recrimination)

(No calmness whatsoever): "Now I WON'T help you. Put that homework away and ask Dad to help when he gets home!"

And so on, and so forth, until as we sat down for an early 4:30 dinner before I took them to wrestling practice. Of course, there were complaints about the type of pasta ("Spaghetti?!"), who sat where ("My turn in the good seat!"), and who got served first/more ("Not fair!").

If you are exhausted reading this, imagine how I felt. Relentless, constant correction and discipline is absolutely NO FUN. In fact, as I sat there watching them eat dinner, all I could think is, "I've got to get a full-time job." They didn't seem to enjoy having me home, and frankly, I wasn't enjoying them a whole lot either. It's like having clients who complaint constantly that I'm the meanest, most unfair, most unreasonable lawyer in the world, AND they don't pay their bills.

Maybe as you read this, you think, "Geez, what out of control kids." On the other hand, if you've spent any time around seven-year-old boys, you may think, "Sounds pretty typical."

I took them to wrestling practice, after telling my younger (by a half hour) son that he was going to have to pay me the $100 wrestling fee from his allowance if he whined about going one more time (I'm convinced we're raising a generation of complainers and quitters, but that's another story). For the first time, I decided to stay and watch the whole practice, since at the last one, the coach said that they hadn't paid attention and had distracted some of the other kids.

I stayed and watched, sitting with another mom on a folded-up mat in a corner of the gym. My boys did the warm-up laps, calestenics, races, and instruction with all the other kids, most of whom are much older. They then did wrestling drills, wrestling each other or different kids while the coaches looked on giving tips. Whenever they caught my eye, I smiled and winked or gave them a subtle thumbs up. When one of them started crying because he got taken down by a smaller boy, and wandered over to complain, I gave him his water bottle and told him to go back to his group. They worked hard, tried hard, and their rallying cry of "it's not fair" was almost non-existent.

At the end of practice, the coach came over to us as we were leaving and said, "You boys did a great job today. I'm really proud of you. Keep up the good work." To me, he said, "It's like night and day between this practice and other ones."

I knew why. It's because I stayed. It's because Mom was watching, keeping tabs, paying attention. It made all the difference.

Kids are a pain in the butt, no doubt about it. Being a mom means constantly nagging, correcting, disciplining. Telling them to brush their teeth, make their beds, wear underwear, find socks, zip up their coats, remember their backpacks, do their homework, say thank you, stop fighting, don't complain eat some fruit turn off the TV drink your milk put on your pajamas pick up your room it's time for bed don't come out of your room again good-night for the last time no you don't need another drink of water. Moms are often every bit as much a pain in the butt to kids as they are to us. We're killjoys. We're also the conscience, the sounding board, the yardstick, the guardian, the ultimate authority, and, if we're lucky, the bedrock solid foundation of our kids' lives.

It's not much fun sometimes. Sometimes it's downright unpleasant. But I think, if I keep at it, they might grow up to be nice young men. Maybe they would anyway, but I'm not taking any chances.

Why aren't you wearing socks?