The Mother I Thought I Would Be

A few years ago during Stake Conference there was a visiting general authority presiding that weekend (for the life of me I cannot remember his name).  Preceding the Saturday evening adult meeting he asked that all of the bishops in the stake along with their wives join him for dinner.  Herman was serving as a fairly new bishop at the time, so he and I joined in the fun.  At some point during the dinner this man (oh I wish I could remember his name!) went around the tables and had each of the wives introduce our husband and tell something about our families.  I did.  No big deal.  But then he gave a little mini talk about how awesome the mothers of the Church are.  He went on and on and on about our awesomeness. . . . And I began to cry.  And cry and cry and cry.  Why wouldn't my tears stop, for goodness sake?  I hate crying in public.  I know that all of the people sitting at my table were thinking, "Awwwwww, Sister Blau is totally feeling the Holy Spirit, and she is crying because she is soooooo happy."  I know they were thinking that because they kept giving me that look -- you know the one -- with a small half smile, letting me know that they totally understood why I would be moved to tears by such a beautiful endorsement of my awesomeness as a wife and mother.  Right?  Well, I leaned over to Herman and whispered, "I hate these kinds of talks."  Herman did a double take has he looked at me, and he raised his eyebrows, questioning how in the world I could hate such a talk.  After all, the man was praising my efforts.  Who doesn't like that sort of talk?  More than that, who HATES that kind of talk?  It made no sense to him.  Yet I continued to cry -- not because I was overcome with emotion, so happy to hear someone validate my role.  As he spoke this leader said, "It is because of you women that our families are succeeding.  You are the reason that we regularly say our prayers each day.  You are the reason that our families are having regular Family Home Evenings.  You are the reason that our children are attending seminary, going on missions, etc., etc., etc."  And on and on and on.  If there are good things going on in a family, he explained that it was because of the valiant efforts of the mothers.  But all I could think about as he spoke was the inverse of that -- if these things were not going on or were not successful, THEN IT WAS MY FAULT.  Now, the logical part of my brain says that I was very much over-analyzing his statements.  He didn't mean to call me out.  He meant to thank me for all that I do.  I didn't need to beat myself up over his comments.  But I couldn't stop crying.

Before I had children I lived in the world of theoreticals.  "When I'm a mom I will do this . . ." or "When I'm a mom I'll never do this . . ."  Insert anything.  The truth was that I wanted to do a good job -- not just a good job, a GREAT job.  And I knew just how to accomplish that.  Piece of cake.  I envisioned myself as strictly observing schedules, taking lots of time out of my day for appropriate learning activities and book reading with my children.  When they came home from school they would be met with a giant hug before I led them to the kitchen so that they could enjoy the fresh batch of homemade cookies or cinnamon rolls.  I envisioned a perfectly homemade meal on the table every evening as our family gathered together to recount the events of our day.  I thought I would be that parent that every other kid on the block would want to come and visit because of my extreme coolness.  I thought that I would be queen of the bedtime ritual, making sure to spend quality time with each of my children, giving them all of the love they would need to get them through a night of sleep.  I thought that I would be the parent who would have a perfectly open relationship with my children so that they would immediately think of coming to me with any problems that they might face.  Prayers, Family Home Evening, scripture study?  We would be unstoppable in our regularity of doing those things.  You name it.  I wanted to be great.  

Laney and me -- December 1994
I had no idea what I was in for!

And then life happened.  Reality hit.  I came home from the hospital with my very first baby, not knowing ANYTHING about what I was doing.  I had my well-worn copy of What to Expect the First Year, dog-eared and underlined.  And yet, why would this bundle of joy not stop crying?  What was I doing wrong?  I got slammed with a bout of postpartum depression that I wasn't prepared for.  It wasn't until I finally had my last child before I even realized that I was suffering from it.  All I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep all day long.  My motivation left me.  I was exhausted.  I felt like I was failing this parenting test big time.  And this story continued for six births and one adoption.  Every time a new situation came to pass, and I had to relearn my role again and again.  This was not all tears and frustration.  If so we would only have one child.  Between my insecurities and fears about my abilities as a mom were moments of joy so sweet that it could erase almost anything else.  Family is amazing.  I wouldn't trade my experience for the world.  Give me my family, mistakes and all.  Nothing this world could offer would top their importance to me.

Today I came home after dropping everyone off at school and ended up thinking a lot about who I am today.  I thought about the mother I expected to be when I was a twenty-three year old know-it-all.  And I thought about who I am now as a forty year old wish-I-knew-it-all.  My mom always had a hot breakfast ready for us each morning.  Cold cereal was a luxury for us.  We got to have that only on Saturday mornings.  My family?  Cold cereal is the norm.  Feed yourselves for breakfast is generally the rule.  When we do have a fancy hot breakfast it is usually on Christmas or on a breakfast-for-dinner night.  I was a highly organized student.  Always.  As a parent?  I am constantly forgetting to go through my kids' folders.  I sometimes forget snack day for the elementary kids and have to do a mad dash to Wal-Mart to grab a box of oreos.  I have often had to make extra runs to the school to hand in permission papers that I forgot to sign, despite constant reminders from my children.  Afternoon snacks prepared by me are a rarity, even though I enjoy baking and am pretty good at it.  We have fend-for-yourself dinners or cold cereal for dinner more often than I care to admit.  After coming home from China I was so incredibly overwhelmed that I didn't do a well thought-out prepared dinner for weeks.  In fact, one day when I started making a real dinner the kids asked me who was coming to visit.  Sigh.  Bedtimes can be hectic.  Family prayers can be forgotten.  Family Home Evenings can sometimes get lost in the shuffle.  I often feel like I don't know the right thing to say to my older children.  I worry that I can make situations worse by saying anything at all.  I can be ridiculously overbearing when it comes to my children and dating.  See HERE and HERE.  Am I proving my point?  I feel unorganized and exhausted more often than I should.  I did not end up being the excellent parent that I hoped to be.  And I could go on for awhile.  But I won't. 

You know, as moms sometimes we can be hard on ourselves.  And many times we can be hard on each other.  I can't even begin to count how many times I have heard the words "I would never do that" come out of a woman's mouth as she was talking about how another woman was raising her children.  It's hard.  Sometimes there are people out there who are truly unfit to be parents.  But the reality is that most of us love our children dearly and are doing our very best to do what is right for them.  I am wary of women who are so quick to volunteer their opinions as to how much better they do as a parent than someone else.  Those people who are always the very first to criticize and then who dominate conversations, letting everyone know their great skills in parenting.  I know that we all have a lot to learn from each other, but I think that I have learned the most from the women who recognize their shortcomings, and work to overcome those shortcomings, never afraid to admit weakness, but instead to volunteer their education in the mommy trenches.  I appreciate those moms so much.  They give me strength and comfort, knowing that I am not alone out there.  

Today my heart is heavy as I think of that mom I expected to be.  Every single time that my child has gotten ready to go to that first day of kindergarten, from Laney all the way to JoJo, I have spent the evening before almost devastated as I thought about all of the things I wish I had done during those five years that I had them all to myself.  Why hadn't I taken more trips to the park or the zoo?  Why hadn't I taken more times to color or read books?  Now everything would be different.  Kindergarten is only the beginning of their eventual weaning from me as a total influence on their life.  Now the rest of the world gets involved.  Now as Laney will soon head off to college (not until next year, thank goodness) I think that feeling that I had when she entered kindergarten is totally intensified.  She's going to be leaving us, and it will never be the same here at the Blau house.  I think about these years that I have had, and I see so many things that could have been better.  And just like my experience at the beginning of this post, I worry that these things don't happen because I, Melissa Blau, didn't make enough effort to get it done.  You read essays and books and see people interviewed who talk about how amazing their mothers were, and I cannot fathom those things being said about me.  Now I'm not a horrible mother at all.  I get the job done, and sometimes admirably, I must say.  But I didnt' end up being the milk-and-cookies sort of amazing mom that I always wished I would be.  When I see my kids talking about their awesome experiences growing up (and I think they have had some great ones) I always think of them mentioning their dad (who is awesome!) -- not me.  I have just too many shortcomings in the mom department.

Isn't this turning into a downer of a post?  I don't feel like a failure as a mom at all.  I look at my family and I see well-adjusted, intelligent, happy, talented, and well-behaved children.  I have an amazingly wonderful relationship with Herman.  We are a bit goofy, but we aren't terribly dysfunctional.  I have no complaints in who Team Blau has turned out to be.  Maybe my neurosis in this is a result of some real fears I have about my life in general.  I think this quote sums up my fear best:

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'it might have been.' — John Greenleaf Whittier

I spend too much time worrying that I may have prevented my family from something amazing because of my shortcomings.  A lot of people use that above quote to motivate others to take risks and grab their futures by the horn, taking control and making the best of everything that they have.  For me, though, I think that those words can be saddest because I spend too much time worrying about the failings of the past instead of recognizing the successes of the present.  I think that my biggest fear that I may have is that when I get older and look back over my life I see the situation below:

Juice Williams is stopped short of a game winning touchdown.

 You've seen those situations in football games.  It's the final seconds of the game.  One team has the ball and a chance to win, only to be stopped inches short of the goal line.  Is that a significant moment of the game?  Yes.  But in reality this team had every opportunity of scoring throughout the game.  The entire game mattered, not just those final seconds.  Football, however, truly is a game of inches.  Well, I worry that I'll have that same feeling at the end.  Looking back over my life and seeing the inches that I missed, the opportunities with my family that I let pass me by while I was overwhelmed with the happenings of life.  I sure don't want that to be the case.  It is just my fear.  I was on a date once, and my date asked me what my greatest hope was in life.  I told him I wanted to have no regrets at the end of it.  He looked at me and said that was a stupid answer.  He was a jerk.  Needless to say, I didn't end up with that bozo.  But still, I do hope that I won't end life concerned too much that I let it pass me by.

So today I recognize that the mom I thought I would be does not exist.  She never did, other than in my head.  But the mom I am today -- scatterbrained, disorganized, exhausted, tongue-tied, overbearing, etc. -- is a mom that loves her family deeply.  She sees the hand of God in her life, gently guiding her when she lets Him, helping her to get the job done.  She has a joy that cannot be described as she sees her large brood jumping on the couches, spilling milk on the carpet, singing very off-key to the Beatles (and not their good song, the weird stuff they wrote at the end), dropping their trash wherever they feel like, and drawing all over the walls.  Because despite all of my shortcomings, I have a happy, secure, and amazing family.  Motherhood can be hard, but it is so worth it.

Team Blau