A Hard Mother's Day
As an English professor, I keep a running list of my banned words, and to words like "plethora," "relatable," and "mind-blowing" I have now added "unprecedented."
I get why everyone is using that word, though. Coronavirus has changed our lives so drastically that many of our experiences feel totally new, or, in fact, unprecedented. Who, for instance, has had a Mother's Day like this one before?
As much as I have come to hate the too-frequent use of the word "unprecedented," I am the first to admit that as a working mother of four, my life has changed since the Coronavirus lock down started. As many others are also doing, I am working and teaching from home, homeschooling my children, leaving the house only to get some exercise or for the occasional trip to get groceries or take the dog to the vet. It hasn't been all bad; we have a great backyard and live in a beautiful place where we can enjoy the weather everyday. I like my little people and we've settled into a loose routine of school work, house work, and play. I'm not day drinking.
But I'll just go ahead and confess here that these past two months have not been the pinnacle of my parenting career. I've gotten short tempered when stressed by the messy intersection of teaching via Zoom, and homeschooling three children, and trying to manage a barely civilized three-year-old boy. I've loudly expressed my dismay over the chaos of our house as we are living and doing ALL of our work in a small space. I've thrown up my hands in despair, yelled, and then plopped my younger kids in front of a screen before retreating to another part of the house and leaving those angry words hanging in the air behind me.
This past week, I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov with one of my classes. On Zoom, which I now hate using to teach, I found myself reading aloud from the last chapter of the epilogue of that book. If you don't know anything about that book, it's about a horrible, selfish man who is murdered; his also kind of horrible oldest son is falsely accused and then convicted of his murder. Readers follow Alyosha the youngest Karamazov brother throughout the novel as he listens to the other characters reveal their true thoughts and feelings. At the end of this sad story, he gathers together a group of school boys he has befriended and mentored. They are at the funeral of one of their number--a little boy who has suffered and died in a world ruled by deeply flawed adults.
I don't know about you, but lately I've been feeling like a deeply flawed adult a lot.
Alyosha says to this group of boys, "You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life . . . And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation."
As I read aloud, I silently questioned--is this really true? Is Alyosha right about childhood? Could just one beautiful sacred memory do so much for a person? And, conversely, could a two-month plus memory of being locked up with a grouchy mom overshadow other memories of childhood?
That very night, one of my children was having a hard evening. She had experienced a panic attack and was crying quietly as I tucked her in bed next to me. Even for kids, this is a hard time and anxiety can become overwhelming. It was very late. All of us were tired, and my husband agreed to sleep on the couch so this sad almost-ten-year-old could hopefully get some rest next to me. We prayed. She tried to close her eyes but tears still seeped out and slowly wet her pillow. I picked up a book of poems I keep next to my bed and began to read aloud to her. She loves to listen to poetry read aloud.
Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Blake, William Wordsworth, even some Dylan Thomas. I read and read and kept reading even after she fell asleep. With her even breathing next to me, I began to notice how much poetry is about memory, either directly or indirectly. There is Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud," which celebrates the memory quite clearly. But then there are the poems of Frost, like "Tuft of Flowers," which seems more to draw upon a memory in order to reflect upon what truth an ordinary moment reveals.
My mind then returned to that speech at the end of The Brothers Karamazov. And I suddenly thoroughly agreed that memory is no small thing in any of our lives. Maybe Alyosha speaks the truth when he tells the school boys that the best education is a "well preserved memory." A child's memories form the fabric of her consciousness for many years to come.
And in that moment late at night as I lay exhausted and stressed and sort of dreading the next day because I would have to face another day in an "unprecedented" situation, I looked at the still-wet lashes of my daughter and rested in the conviction that some memories are stronger than others. Love, even from a deeply flawed mother, still creates strong memories.
Let me be clear: this is a hard year to celebrate motherhood. But what makes it hard is not truly "unprecedented." There is nothing new about the challenges of mothering in a dark night. There is nothing new about the very real difficulty of persevering through bewildering times. There is nothing new about a mother's feelings of failure and inadequacy.
But there is also nothing new about the power of giving our children a few good, beautiful memories. Even just one memory of being truly loved.
I get why everyone is using that word, though. Coronavirus has changed our lives so drastically that many of our experiences feel totally new, or, in fact, unprecedented. Who, for instance, has had a Mother's Day like this one before?
But I'll just go ahead and confess here that these past two months have not been the pinnacle of my parenting career. I've gotten short tempered when stressed by the messy intersection of teaching via Zoom, and homeschooling three children, and trying to manage a barely civilized three-year-old boy. I've loudly expressed my dismay over the chaos of our house as we are living and doing ALL of our work in a small space. I've thrown up my hands in despair, yelled, and then plopped my younger kids in front of a screen before retreating to another part of the house and leaving those angry words hanging in the air behind me.
This past week, I finished reading The Brothers Karamazov with one of my classes. On Zoom, which I now hate using to teach, I found myself reading aloud from the last chapter of the epilogue of that book. If you don't know anything about that book, it's about a horrible, selfish man who is murdered; his also kind of horrible oldest son is falsely accused and then convicted of his murder. Readers follow Alyosha the youngest Karamazov brother throughout the novel as he listens to the other characters reveal their true thoughts and feelings. At the end of this sad story, he gathers together a group of school boys he has befriended and mentored. They are at the funeral of one of their number--a little boy who has suffered and died in a world ruled by deeply flawed adults.
I don't know about you, but lately I've been feeling like a deeply flawed adult a lot.
Alyosha says to this group of boys, "You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life . . . And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation."
As I read aloud, I silently questioned--is this really true? Is Alyosha right about childhood? Could just one beautiful sacred memory do so much for a person? And, conversely, could a two-month plus memory of being locked up with a grouchy mom overshadow other memories of childhood?
That very night, one of my children was having a hard evening. She had experienced a panic attack and was crying quietly as I tucked her in bed next to me. Even for kids, this is a hard time and anxiety can become overwhelming. It was very late. All of us were tired, and my husband agreed to sleep on the couch so this sad almost-ten-year-old could hopefully get some rest next to me. We prayed. She tried to close her eyes but tears still seeped out and slowly wet her pillow. I picked up a book of poems I keep next to my bed and began to read aloud to her. She loves to listen to poetry read aloud.
Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Blake, William Wordsworth, even some Dylan Thomas. I read and read and kept reading even after she fell asleep. With her even breathing next to me, I began to notice how much poetry is about memory, either directly or indirectly. There is Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud," which celebrates the memory quite clearly. But then there are the poems of Frost, like "Tuft of Flowers," which seems more to draw upon a memory in order to reflect upon what truth an ordinary moment reveals.
My mind then returned to that speech at the end of The Brothers Karamazov. And I suddenly thoroughly agreed that memory is no small thing in any of our lives. Maybe Alyosha speaks the truth when he tells the school boys that the best education is a "well preserved memory." A child's memories form the fabric of her consciousness for many years to come.
And in that moment late at night as I lay exhausted and stressed and sort of dreading the next day because I would have to face another day in an "unprecedented" situation, I looked at the still-wet lashes of my daughter and rested in the conviction that some memories are stronger than others. Love, even from a deeply flawed mother, still creates strong memories.
Let me be clear: this is a hard year to celebrate motherhood. But what makes it hard is not truly "unprecedented." There is nothing new about the challenges of mothering in a dark night. There is nothing new about the very real difficulty of persevering through bewildering times. There is nothing new about a mother's feelings of failure and inadequacy.
But there is also nothing new about the power of giving our children a few good, beautiful memories. Even just one memory of being truly loved.
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