Make Room for Daddy

I am a parenting hog. I want all the control. I want to make all the decisions. And I want my husband to do exactly what I do. I would hate being married to me.

Fortunately, I unwittingly picked a guy who is pretty much willing to go with this program. Despite the fact that I have more masculine traits than he does, (we once took a test that we found in a paperback book in a used book store, the quasi-scientific equivalent of a Cosmo Quiz—I came out leaning towards the masculine side, and Kevin the feminine) we have settled into very traditional gender roles. Kevin takes the morning train. He works from 9-5 and then, he takes another home again to find me waiting for him. (Lines totally stolen from Sheena Easton, but, alas, true. Please don’t sue me, Sheena.) Meanwhile, I take care of all things Sophie—from baths to doctor’s appointments, from laundry to preschool drop-off. This is not to say that Kevin doesn’t pitch in. He does. We do her bedtime routine together almost every night. He plays with her while I cook dinner. And in the mornings, whenever possible, he’ll help with her shoes or brush her teeth or make sure she eats.

There is a price to pay for this—for the control. For one, if I want it done in a particular way (say, I want her to sit in her chair while she eats and she wants to sit in daddy’s lap, stroke his beard, and chew each bite with glacial slowness) I need to either 1) leave the room and what will be will be or 2) do it myself. If I stay and watch, the tension builds up inside my body and becomes so great that I say something I regret, or I have to take over.

I wish this wasn’t true. I wish I could let it go. Parenting together is the hardest thing.

The other morning, we were all sitting around the breakfast table and Sophie told us about a negative interaction she had with a peer at school. The other child had told her she didn’t want to be her friend anymore—she wanted another girl to be her friend. Sophie tilted her chin to her neck and looking downtrodden, said, “I felt left out.” It is a phrase I taught her in an attempt to give words to her emotions during a similar incident. Though I believe her feelings were hurt in this instance, there was also something melodramatic about the presentation. It seemed to me that she was trying to evoke a particular response from Kevin and me.

So, I tried to treat this admission with lightness. Sophie has a tendency to get locked into routines. I could see this becoming a daily drama. I took a very problem-focused approach: “Well, if she says something like that, just go find someone else to play with. She gets moody sometimes. So do you. It will blow over.” I saw a look in Kevin’s eye that led me to believe he didn’t agree with my approach.

Then, Kevin, who is very attuned and takes great care to ensure that Sophie’s feelings are acknowledged, leaned in and said, empathically, “it really hurts your feelings when a friend says something like that to you.” Sophie nodded.

I felt that twinge, the discomfort that arises from disagreement. A tightness in my chest. But then, I overrode it. It was almost as though I had stepped out of my body and was watching the three of us having this complex interaction. I saw Kevin’s intent, his sweet parenting style, his very different way of conceptualizing this moment, and I stopped judging it.

I let it go.

And, since that conversation, she hasn’t said another word about it. Maybe all that she needed was a father’s feminine touch.

She Feels My Pain...Sort Of

The first day I hobbled around on crutches, Sophie brought me home a card “for my foot.”

On the second day, she stepped on it.

Sophie’s sense of empathy is ephemeral. One minute she’s gently patting my orthopedic boot, cooing “awwww,” (a sound she reserves for picture of kittens and babies). The next minute she’s demanding that I get her some dried apricots “right now!” She can’t seem to hold it in her consciousness that I’m hurt. At this point, I am so used to her general obliviousness to my emotional state, it’s the kindness that surprises me.

So, as she’s looking up at me and saying, “Oh, Mommy,” in the affectionate tone that I use with her when she’s ailing, I smile and my eyes well. It doesn’t take much.

“Mommy,” Sophie observes, “you are crying, but you’re smiling. Are you touched?” Kevin and I have educated her in the physical markers of this complex feeling—another concept she is on the cusp of grasping. One day, after throwing a fit, she declared, “I need calm down time,” and ran to her room where she sobbed into her snake. Minutes later she returned, truly calmer. Through her tears, her face broke into a smile. “Look, mommy, my eyes are wet, but I’m in a good mood. I’m touched!” (Nice try.)

But in this instance, she has hit the mark. “Yes,” I tell her, “I am. You are being very sweet and kind to me, and I really appreciate it.” Sophie smiles to, and I am encouraged to see that she feels proud of her ability to touch me. Perhaps she will not grow up to be a serial killer.

There was a time when it was believed that parental warmth was a critical factor in the development of empathy, the ability to both understand and enter into another’s feelings. But studies conducted over the last several decades have determined that warmth alone is not enough. In fact, parents who are warm but shy away from setting limits may actually foster self-centeredness. Turns out, it’s all about love and boundaries. To be able to focus on and empathize with another, children need to understand that it’s not all about them.

Certainly, modeling empathy, encouraging children to recognize and acknowledge the emotions of others, and pointing out when they have had an impact on others, good or bad, helps the process along through “external” means.

Internally, children must develop a “theory of mind,” the cognitive component of empathy. Theory of mind is the ability to take the perspective of another—to understand that other people have thoughts different from one’s own. Though some children will attempt to comfort others as early as 18 months, theory of mind typically doesn’t emerge until about four years of age. So I guess I can forgive Sophia for stepping on my foot. For now.

Next year, I expect an apology.

Playing Favorites

The whole family is in my bed…Sophia, Kevin and I...spending a few intimate moments before we deposit Sophie in her crib for her requisite 12 hours of sleep.

It’s five minutes past her bedtime, Sophie is giddy in an over-tired, second-wind kind of way. She’s rolling between us, taking turns asking us for a specific number of hugs. “Daddy give me five hugs,” and Daddy obliges. “Mommy give me seven,” and I give her seven staccato squeezes, counting them off. Sophie, less than an inch in my face, so close I have to squint to focus on her, says, suddenly serious, “You are my favorite and Daddy is YOUR favorite.”

Fascinating. Kevin attributes this statement to a healthy resolution of the Oedipal Conflict. I’ll try to translate this psycho-analytic jargon into plain English: According to Freud, the Oedipal Conflict arises from unconscious desires to possess the parent of the opposite sex (Kevin) and eliminate the parent of the same sex (me), manifested in declarations such as, “I want to marry daddy.” (Sophie actually said this, while fingering his wedding ring on more than one occasion.) Resolution of the complex takes place when the child beings to identify with the parent of the same sex and rejects the parent of the opposite sex, which (according to classical analytic theory) is the key to the development of gender roles and identity. It’s a theory, which, like any theory, is an attempt to explain a process based on observation. Though it fits nicely with the storyline of Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus Rex, and, it does seem to be a dynamic that is occurring in my household, I don’t wholly embrace it. For one, unsuccessful resolution becomes a disease model of homosexuality, which I reject wholesale. And two, it’s only part of the picture.

I think Sophie’s fantasy was/is more along the lines of fundamental Mormonism—that somehow we could become sister-wives, both married to the man we love, living polygamously ever after. I don’t think she ever wanted me out of the picture. This isn’t hubris. I have evidence. There has not been an evening where she hasn’t wanted me to carry her to bed, a boo boo where she hasn’t looked to me for comfort. I think she has always seen Kevin and me as fulfilling two very distinct and necessary roles in her life. It is rare that I can evoke a belly laugh from her like Daddy can. But there are times when only Mommy will do. Her preferences seem to have more to do with personality than they do with sex.

So how do I read her complex interpretation of our familial relationship to one another? “Favorite” is a new and delicious concept for Sophie. It comes with the understanding that she has agency and choice. These days, she is constantly asserting her own “favorites” and expressing curiosity about mine: While reading Curious George takes a Job, “Mommy this is my favorite page; what’s your favorite page?” Holding up the round duplo pieces she has deemed “her lollipops,” “Mommy this is my favorite lollipop; which one is yours?” Interestingly, she doesn’t want us to have the same favorite. She wants us to have shared interests, but separate likes. She is looking to define herself as other than me, while still maintaining a deep and abiding connection. And, perhaps the most moving aspect of all of this is that she is AS interested in my interests as I am in hers. She understands that I have unique thoughts and preferences different from own. She cares about what I think. She cares about what I like. These are the building blocks of empathy. Her statement, “You’re MY favorite and Daddy is YOUR favorite,” is not globally true. It is true in this moment. She might as well have been saying, “I love you, and you love daddy.” We both love, and we love differently.

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

Sophie’s regression started with a simple request: “Mama, carry me like a little baby.” I obliged because, quite frankly, this is a fantasy I like to indulge in myself. Further evidence of our folie a deux.

“My tired little baby,” I whispered into her sweaty mop of hair, “do you need a kiss?”

“Yes, ma-ma,” she answered. I took all 28 pounds of her into my arms, planted a kiss on the crown of her head, and carried her off to bed.

We both felt a deep sense of satisfaction. The perfect ending to a day of eternal struggle. A mother-toddler battle-of-the-wills smackdown, which goes a little like this.

After a gentle request to climb into her carseat: “If you don’t climb into that carseat by the time I count to three, I’m putting you in. 1…2…. Good listening!”

After an invitation to sit down to breakfast: “If you don’t climb into that highchair by the count of three, I’m putting you in…1…2…3. That was pushing it, Missy.”

After notification that it is time to leave the park: “If you don’t climb back into your stroller by the count of three, I’ll put you in, myself…1…2…2 ½…3. (Sounds of a struggle…”NO! I’ll do it myself!” “I gave you the opportunity to do it yourself, now I have to do it for you.” “Daddy said I can do it myself!” “Daddy is at work and said no such thing.” “Waaaahhhhhhh!!!!”)

We are both wrung out.

The next day, I am fixing breakfast and Sophie is playing on the floor beside me. “Look, ma-ma. I’m a little baby crawling to you.” She crawls over to me and puts her arms up in the air, “uppy!” (NB: Even as a baby, Sophie never said “uppy.” This babytalk is based on her observation of other children, a modeling of iconic baby behavior, rather than a true reversion to her younger self.) I lift her up; she rests her head on my shoulder and places her thumb in her mouth.

She needs me less and less.

The awareness of her independence triggers an existential crisis that makes her want me more, “I want to be separate…oh no, I am alone in the world…I want to merge.” And then the cycle repeats. I do a careful dance of trying to foster her sense of self-efficacy and offering the reassurance that I am there to take care of her. It requires a great deal of attunement, empathy, and memory. At times, more than I can manage (e.g., I must retain the knowledge that she likes for me to begin to peel her banana, but not remove the peel entirely so that she can then peel the rest of it herself and hand it off to me for disposal. NOT following this sequence, i.e., peeling the banana entirely and then handing it to her runs the risk of triggering a tantrum.)

One could make the case that I should not give in to toddler whims. I am the parent. The control should rest with me. But I believe in giving her control within the limits of behavior that is acceptable to me. Letting her have a sense of autonomy, of agency, of importance. It is no skin off my nose to let her peel the rest of the banana. Saving a few seconds is not worth a battle. Safety issues, such as holding my hand when she crosses the street, are non-negotiables. I save my strength for these fights. I have no desire to lord over her, bend her will, break her spirit. Somehow, I believe, she understands the fairness of this, the inherent respect. She listens when it counts.
By the same token, I have to reel in the impulse to baby her, not just to do things for her, but to coddle her and hover over her like the helicopter parent I am. I try, really try, to make sure that babying takes place on her terms, when she is feeling frightened of the chasm forming between us her new, more competent self, when she wants assurance that she’ll always be my baby. (“Carry me like a little baby.” “Uppy.”) This is not to say that I don’t constantly reach for her, kiss her and tell her I love her. I do. But if rejected in the moment, “No Mommy! Don’t kiss me,” I back off, knowing the less I push, the less she’ll resist.

None of this is easy because it’s not about what I want or need. But I find that if I follow her rhythms…the ebb and flow of her desire to be connected and separate, the rise and fall of her longing for agency and care…I get exactly what I want and just what I need.

The Necessity of Conflict

Well, I did it. I yelled at Sophia. It was one of the things that, before I had her, I swore I would never do. But, turns out, I am human after all.

I have long held that most contention, most negative behavior can be effectively prevented if you have the time and energy to do it. But this was a day on which I had neither.

Sophia had just finished her morning at my mother’s nursery school, and as usual was utterly exhausted, having had less than her standard twelve hours of beauty rest and spent two hours in the car to arrive at school by nine. She collapsed on a giant stuffed frog, plugged her mouth with her thumb, and stared at the ceiling as she stroked his green fuzz.

My hard-working mom was having a down day, and I wanted to cheer her up. “Go ask grandma if she wants to come out to lunch with us,” I whispered into Sophia’s ear. She popped up, galloped over to my mother and shouted down the parents surrounding my mom. “Grandma, will you come to lunch with me?” My mother scooped Sophia up, beaming. “Excuse me,” she told the crowd, “but I was just asked to lunch by my grand-daughter.”

It took us awhile to collect our things, pile into the car, and get over to the luncheonette, but when we arrived we were the only customers, so I wasn’t terribly concerned that we were swiftly approaching nap time. Somehow, our three sandwiches took over a half-hour to make. By which point Sophia had fallen out of her chair several times, was transitioned to a high chair, protested adamantly, rejected every toy and chotchke offered, had grabbed every sharp and fragile object off the table, and had thoroughly irritated the couple having an adulterous rendez-vous at the next table.

I got half of a greasy grilled-cheese into her before she really started to lose it, whining, dropping her milk on the floor, and running her oily hands through her freshly-washed hair. (She knows this really gets to me). We asked for the check and high-tailed it out of there, leaving shredded napkins in our wake. In the car Sophia announced, “I want to go to sleep. I want my crib.”

“I know, darlin’.” I assured her, “I’ll get us home as fast as I can.” It was ½ an hour past her naptime. Most kids would just nap in the car. Not Sophie.

Forty red lights later, we arrived at my mother’s house, Sophie’s diaper bulging. I forgot to change it at the nursery school. If I let it go, she’s was going to leak. At best, she’d smell like pee. At worst, she’d soak the pack and play that she uses for a bed. I decided to change her.

Bad decision. She squirmed out of my grasp and made a break for it. “I just want to be with these two rabbits,” she screamed from across the room, clutching two stuffed rabbits to her chest defiantly. I approached her slowly, brandishing my iphone. “Hey Sophie,” I coo, “you want to look at animals?” I tapped the toddler flashcard app and held up a picture of a pig and snorted. “Look, it’s a pig!”

“NO! I DON’T WANT THE PIG.”

“Come on, Sophie. I just need to change your diaper and then you can go to sleep.”

“I DON’T HAVE A POOPY DIAPER!”

“I know you don’t, but you do have a very wet diaper, and I need to change it. I would be remiss as your mother if I didn’t make sure you were clean and dry before I put you down for a nap.”

“I’M NOT POOPY! I’M NOT POOPY!”

I decided that negotiations were over. I laid her flat on the changing pad. She began to buck and kick me. I would pin one part of her body and another part would wrench free and take a shot at me. I managed to rip off her soaked Pampers. I was grabbing a wipe when she clocked me in the jaw with her heel. That was it. I lost my cool.

“GOD DAMN IT, SOPHIA! STOP KICKING ME! YOU’RE HURTING ME! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I JUST WANT TO CHANGE YOUR DIAPER! WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LIE STILL?!?!?!”

My guilty conscience answered: Because she’s exhausted. Because you woke her early. You kept her up late. And now you’re subjecting her to her least favorite activity in the whole wide world. How would you like to have someone pin you to the ground, rip off your clothes, and vigorously wipe your vulva when all you wanted to do was sleep?

I took a deep breath. I forewent the wiping, slapped a fresh diaper on her, and carried her off to bed.

“I’m sorry for yelling, Sophia. I love you. I was just frustrated.” I closed the door. Then, I got a cup of coffee, put my head in my hands, and berated myself for an hour.

When she woke up, all seemed forgotten. We didn’t talk about the incident.

That night, over dinner, Sophia told my mother, “Mommy and I had a fight.”

“Oh?” says my mother.

“Yes. Mommy yelled at me, and I was squirming too much.”

I felt the weight of my guilt lift a little. I was deeply impressed that she acknowledged her role in our struggle. She didn’t simply feel victimized by my yelling; she accepted responsibility for the co-creation of our fight.

Most adults can’t do that.

Here, I was thinking that as her parent, I need to be the one who exercises self-control for the both of us, the one who engineers the environment for harmony. But what I didn’t realize, is that Sophia is becoming her own person, a person with a nascent understanding of what makes me angry, what hurts me, what pleases me. And she is beginning to be able to make choices about how she acts in the world. It is only through the context of a real fight that one learns the impact that one has on another. It is only through processing of these incidents that one understands contrition. Empathy, taking personal responsibility, and making a meaningful apology are skills that need to be learned in the context of a relationship where safety is guaranteed. And all is forgiven.

I cannot make any promises that I won’t yell again. I will. And it won’t be rational, or fair. But I’ll continue to try to do my best to respect Sophia’s needs, to pick my battles and to admit when I’ve done her wrong.

And to take her to the carpet, when necessary.

Mommy's Sad

I am depressed. I cannot contain it. Tears leak out of me while I am driving, cooking,—whenever my back is turned and she can’t see my eyes.

On this particular evening, I am bent over the sink, weeping over mushrooms, when I feel Sophia’s small arms encircle my legs. She leans in and kisses my thigh. I look down, and she’s laughing. Empathy, a nascent emotion…her kisses are compassionate, but her eyes are amused by my red, twisted, tear-stained face. As if it is a mask and the real mommy, the happy one, will suddenly pop out and say peek-a-boo from behind these sad sad eyes.

I do not want her to see me this way. Kevin comes in, offers a kiss, and draws her away, leaving me to my salty mushrooms. "Mommy's sad?" I hear her ask him. "Yes, mommy's sad, " he affirms.

I do not want her to know that I am suffering. But I am even more concerned about putting my daughter in the awkward position of having to comfort her mother. (In the tunnel of my memory, I can hear my mother sobbing behind a closed door. I feel its magnetic pull, urging me to go in and hold her, reassure her. But it is my resentment that keeps me from unlocking my arms wrapped around my knees. From getting off my bed and going to her. Anger, guilt and fear compete for limited space in my heart.)

I have talked to others who disagree with this. One who says that in the act of holding and kissing me, Sophia is revealing a sweet and compassionate nature. Another who thinks it is okay to know that their parents experience a whole range of emotions—positive and negative. And still others who treasure such gestures in their own children.

But another friend, also sad, understands. She shares a moment, during which, utterly frustrated, she broke down and sobbed in front of her children. We both wondered at (and worried about) what their experience of our pain might be. What feelings it engenders. What memories they will be left with.

Every day, I push past the pain. I drag my sleep-drugged self out of bed to fetch Sophia from her crib. When I retreat back under the covers, she drops book after book onto my head, imposing consciousness. She crawls in next to me, and I recite the stories from memory until the blear lifts from my eyes and the words snap back into focus. We migrate downstairs, and I drink cup after cup of coffee until I feel something that resembles energy. On our days alone, we go to all the places she loves—swimming pools and nursery school, museums and music classes. I operate under the assumption that if I force myself to stay active, I might be able to trick my brain’s chemistry back into homeostasis. But it is her infectious smile, not these outings, that calms my mind and quiets my ruminations.

I do not want to be healed by her attentions. But her love is healing. I do not want to be her burden. But she doesn’t seem weighted down by me.

I have only the awareness of the virulence of my misery to prevent it from spreading. That and a sincere desire to regain happiness and, once again, be the content and lighthearted parent she deserves.