On the Effort of Motherhood.
Recently my son has been asking me questions at random.
“What is your dream job?” he asked one morning as we walked from the parking lot into school, his hand wrapped tightly around mine.
“If you could eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?” he questioned me as we sat eating pasta and broccoli at the dinner table one night.
And his favorite question right now:
“Where would you be right now if you could pick anywhere in the world?”
He’ll ask me these questions as we are climbing into the car to run errands or waiting at the dentist office or doing yard work together on a Saturday morning.
My normal response to the last one is always somewhere on a beach with all five of us together. Mom, Dad, and three kids. He always smiles with a far off look in his eyes and says something like “Yeah, me too.”
Part of me wonders if he is testing me with all of these questions. Like he’s trying to catch me off guard during these in between moments of life, to see what I’m really thinking.
He always asks the questions first, and then I always ask him back, and he thinks for a minute and looks at his feet as we walk or pokes a piece of pasta onto his fork.
“Maybe a mattress tester, or an ice cream inventor!” he smirks, eating up my reaction of surprised joy at his declaration.
“Maybe spring rolls, or ice cream” he shrugs his shoulders as he munches on broccoli, and I remind myself for the millionth time to get ingredients to make spring rolls this weekend.
And I can’t help but wonder if he is asking them because he is just curious, or if he’s trying to get into me, past the tired mom mask, and into a crevice of who I really am as a person.
Having kids is nuts, man. Especially when they get to an age where they put you off your guard, and they can maybe see that you don’t actually know what the hell you are doing. But damnit, that you are trying your hardest.
I do hope when I’m all old and grey and they are more successful than me, and wiser, and better humans than I will ever be, that they will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their mom put in the effort. That they will know that I tried, not that I always got it right in the end, but I put in every spare bit of effort I could.
Effort to play tag with them at the park or answer random questions as I’m slinging backpacks on little shoulders, or when I knee down before them and pull them into a hug and whisper sorry for losing my patience. That I was vulnerable and open and strong and kind.
I hope they remember the effort because raising them is the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done with my life. And all of this effort that goes into them, damnit, I can’t really think of a better place to pour my energy into. The effort means something because they mean everything, and I don’t care how corny it sounds.
HR