Surviving Parental Abuse

My husband and I, like most parents, have been the recipients of mouth-smacks, blows to the stomach, vicious shin and groin kicks, bites, headbutts, running headbutts, and whatever that WWF wrestling move is where the one guy brings his knee down on the back of the other guy who is already lying helpless on the floor. Can't remember the name of that move, but it was big in the '80s.

“Broken noses are a very common injury for parents,” my doctor once told me flatly, while she was checking the corneal damage I had after my adorable then-12-month-old daughter had poked me in the eye. "You know, if you try to carry a toddler having a tantrum and they fling their head back? Yeah. I've seen lots of parents come in here with broken noses from that."

“Make sure you keep her fingernails trimmed,” my doc offered, hinting that my eye damage could have been prevented had I properly groomed my kids. I left with the understanding that parental abuse was one of the few types of abuse where no matter what happened to you, it was always your fault.

Case in point.

A while ago, when my husband was hiding from us in the mountains of Peru on another seemingly interminable business trip, I was near my breaking point one night at dinner time. All three children—then aged 6, 3.5 and 2—had begun their nightly caterwauling when faced with their meal. The littlest, my son, was being particularly bothersome to the other two, so I decided it would be a good idea to have him eat his meal on my lap.

He began waving his arms around in an attempt to entertain the table. It was cute, and seemed to diffuse the negative mood, and I was brain-jammed from the caterwauling.

I didn't notice that in his right hand he was tightly gripping his fork like a switchblade. After one particularly erratic movement, he flung his arm backward and stabbed me in the eye with the utensil. The pain was dreadful, and when I took my hand away from my eye, there was blood seeping from the corner.

I felt terribly sorry for myself, because there was no one else there to do it, and I began to cry.

“Eeeew!” said the girls, looking at the bloodstained tears coursing down my face. I went into full breakdown mode and began to weep openly.

“Are you ok, mom?” said one of the girls, though I quickly realized from the expression in her eyes that it wasn't a question about my injury, but about my sanity.

“It's just really hard being a mom sometimes,” I said between sobs.

“Uh-oh...” the girls said in unison, giving each other a look before breaking into a fit of conspiratorial giggles.

They began to eat finally, and in the end the eye stab was a plus, since it distracted them long enough to forget about hating their dinner.

As I finally tucked into my meal, holding a napkin to my still seeping eye. I thought, “I should never have put him on my lap to eat. He's too big for that now. Really, it was all my fault.”

Field Trip

Today I went on a field trip with my daughter's kindergarten class. Fall is upon us and the time has come once again to visit a “real, working farm”--which apparently means the kids can't touch anything--including vegetables or animals--as yellow-vested retirees mumble into walkie-talkies and herd the kids from station to station: caged rabbits, caged chickens, and a vegetable patch where they "stand on the hay, please! And don't trample the carrots!"

“This is so boring,” my daughter declared, and I had to agree. The whole point of visiting the “country” is to feel free, to run with the chickens, get your hands dirty, pull a carrot out of the ground, hold rabbits, maybe even get nipped by a pig without fear of a lawsuit.

I tried to explain that farmers have to eke out a living somehow, and with their livelihood at stake, cramming as many busloads of five-year-olds as possible into their hay maze and overpriced market makes a lot of sense.

But it was lost on her.

What my daughter did notice was her best friend's beautiful little bento lunch. Her best friend's mom happens to be Japanese—as in, recently moved here from Tokyo, and her mothering skills put me to shame. I'd thought the lunch I had carefully made the night before for my kids – delicious chicken salad sandwiches featuring grapes, walnuts and no mayo, which they hate (instead, Greek yogurt, a brilliant fix!) now looked totally blah next to the carrot slices cut into jack-o'-lantern shapes and Hello Kitty-shaped nori stuck onto perfect little rice balls dyed pink with food coloring. This was some hardcore housewifery -- not even those Stepford bitches could touch that shit.

But in the end, no one ate, as we were in a barn that was overtaken with flies (turned out we were seated near cat litter.) But the perfectionism battle really went out the window when one little boy declared he had no lunch. Several moms and the teacher quickly scrambled to give him some food, and the first thing that reached his hands was a giant apple.

"Apples are my favorite!" he said, bursting with enthusiasm, and took a big, juicy bite.

The Self-hating Mother

Many of us bourgeois moms--me at the top of the list--are spoiled, emotionally immature complainers who become far too easily overwhelmed. Part of this is because those seemingly small decisions in life apparently have far-reaching consequences.

That Hallowe'en candy you binged on? It might have been made with the help of child slaves! The six-pack of beer you bought your husband so he'd grumble less when you went out with your friends? Make sure to cut the plastic rings or you will be strangling a seagull!

And never buy supermarket meat, as you will be riddling your children with hormones that will make them obese and force them into early puberty!

I have noticed a startling lack of enthusiasm for causes since I became a mother. I went from a vegetarian lover of impromptu street theatre, poetry slams and political protests to a carnivorous, gas-guzzling minivan driver too tired to give a shit. I think my low point was loading an obscene amount of ground beef and diapers into my minivan at the Costco parking lot on voting day. (And yes, I forgot to vote.)

Being a mother didn't turn me into some giving, community-oriented Mother Theresa. (She had the *time*! She had no actual children?) Being a mother made me just another guilt-ridden, arrogant, self-absorbed pursuer of "me-time," who "does what she can" --mostly making appropriate consumer choices and disposing of garbage correctly.

Is it just me, or is the obvious solution to bring back drinking, smoking, Valium, pressure-cooking everything, denial and bridge as appropriate pass-times for moms?

Duty Day

If you often find yourself thinking “the kids are growing up so quickly” and “there aren't enough hours in the day,” then be sure to volunteer for Duty Day at your child's preschool.

There is nothing like a duty day to connect with your child.

And to truly make. time. stand. still.

Chances are your child's pleasant-yet-iron-willed teachers have found a way to make you help in some way, whether it be by washing a load of art smocks, saving and cleaning out yogurt containers for crafts, or combing your local grocery aisles for a bag of organic fruit.

Or you can help in the classroom, and find the zen in cutting tiny cheese cubes, watching kids sneeze into the cookie dough on baking day, or the singing circle, full of three-to-five-year-olds squirming on the floor. 

What makes it entertaining are those nuggets only children can come up with. For example—said in a loud voice by a three-year-old pointing to a sweet, quiet granny of a teacher having a bad hair day,“Did you know that all the teachers here are girls, even *her*?”