Motherhood is a Bitter Pill to Swallow

The other day, I made my trek to Target for my annual attempt at the impossible: find a card that sends the right message to NM (and MIL, although I've relinquished this task to DH.  He can figure it out.)  I've done the photo card (but didn't feel like making the effort this year).  I've let myself off the hook a lot when it comes to Mother's Day (I give a simple plant....gives them something to "care" for) and a card.  And done.  Oh, and the damn phone call. 

Anyway, the man who stocks the cards was perched in the aisle, watching me.  He asked "Can I help you look for something?"  I told him no, that I was looking for a card for a "difficult mom".  He told me he understood.  But he continued to give me weird looks as I paced the aisle.  Pulling card after card out.  Reading it, rejecting it, putting it back.  Plain cards?  Nope.  They'll antagonize her.  Sentimental cards?  HAHAHA.  Like what?  Thanks for being a great mom?

The guy finally looked at me and complained "You're making me nervous going around and around like that!!"  Well, too damn bad.  How do you think I feel?  Clearly, this is no treat for me. 

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I was watching a preview for a Mother's Day show on Ellen this week.  And a bitter and bitching feeling came over me.  I was so sick of hearing the "She's the woman who has always been there.  The woman who you can always count on." bullshit.  Sick of the advertisements and TV commercials pushing to "honor" Mother's: the Greatest People in the World.  It just made me want to vomit.

I've felt this bitter feeling before.  Hearing about how other people drop their kids off with the grandparents for a night (or weekend) so they can have a break.  Seeing grandparents involved (and not making it about themselves) at baseball or preschool programs.  Today, Sesame Street had a "Grandparent Festival" (or something) to honor grandparents.  I got that same bitter feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Not quite angry, not sad, must pissy about the whole damn thing. 

I'm not jealous either.  I mean, sure, I wish I had that.  But I'm not angry that other people are fortunate to have lovely parents or grandparents.  Good for them.  But I do think I get bitter when parenthood or grandparenthood is elevated to this esteemed place that makes the rest of us feel like our families don't measure up.  Or that all these "honor days" and sugar coated ideals put pressure on the rest of us to feel the same about our families...even if our families don't deserve to be "honored".   I'm bitter that there doesn't seem to be any room for people who aren't one big happy family.  I'm bitter that society forces us to all feel exactly the same way about our moms. 

But I realized the other day, I AM a mom too.  That this bitterness seeps into my own feelings about my mothering.  That I've become so tainted and bitter against "motherhood" that I've forgotten that, for a lot of people, a mom really is a good thing.  I see those commercials about a great mom and think "yeah, right.  I'm sure your mom is just wonderful."  I've become a bit biased in thinking that all moms are horrible and that the relationship with between mothers and children is always nastiness disguised as love. 

It struck me as sad that I think that.  I don't want to feel that way about my relationship with my children.  I don't want to feel that I'm doomed to eventually have the same shitty relationship I have with my FOO and in-laws.  I want to have hope and be positive and feel good about my relationship with my kids.  And I really struggle with how to reconcile the two relationships: mine with my kids, and my mother's with me.  It's hard to separate my feelings about "motherhood" and find a different definition, when my narcissistic mother had been the definition for so long.

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On a side note, NM sent me a Mother's Day card this year.  It arrived on Monday (MONDAY.  She certainly wanted to make sure it arrived in time.)  We haven't really talked since I called her out on being negative about my son (she did manage to call and my son accidentally picked up - he's not supposed to answer the phone for this reason.  She was all giddy about getting to talk to him - unsupervised - which pissed me off.  I also felt a bit violated, as she has mentioned all the things he "told her".  Stuff that was not really a secret, but that I haven't told her, as she doesn't ASK about us.  I try to be very limited in what I tell her as she turns it around and, either, uses it against us or tells everyone she knows in order to get NS for herself.  I don't like her gossiping about me.  She's mentioned this phone call three times now.  I think she thinks that she's being positive by saying nice things about talking to him, but the whole thing annoys me.  Especially since, behind his back, she was basically saying he was spoiled and greedy.)  Anyway, I went on "break" from her and quite responding to things (and went out of town with no cell coverage so she couldn't get ahold of me.  I got several "are you getting my messages?" before she gave up.)

So, to get the card seemed like a narc olive branch.  A way to look nice with minimal effort.  She hasn't sent me a card in years past.  I think she did the first year I became a mom, but I know she didn't last year (she was pissed at me).   The card was actually a nice sentiment and described our relationship well.  It said that I'm a good mom.  It talked about how she knew me as a little girl but has not fully begun to understand all that I am as an adult woman (or something to that effect).  It almost, almost, made me feel she understood me.  And maybe she does.  But, despite all of that "understanding" or attempts to understand, she doesn't follow through by treating me like a grown up.  She doesn't make any attempts to really work on our relationship.  She just offers greeting cards and sentiments written by someone else.  So, I guess it is what it is.  I read the card, didn't allow it to move me in my feelings about our relationship (something that was huge for me), and dropped it in the trash. 

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For all my friends out there who are moms, Happy Mother's Day!

Hallmark Obligations

I know tons of other ACoNs have written about this, but I need to do my own little vent.

I hate Mother's Day.  Loathe it.  I hate standing in the aisle trying to pick out a card.  Most of them talk about a mother's unconditional love, endless support, tireless care.  NM doesn't qualify for those cards.  One year, I bought her a pretty card that said "Mother" on it.  This set of NM's radar.  I didn't really intend to be stand-offish.  I thought it was pretty and had a nice sentiment to it.  But she zeroed in on the fact that I called her "mother".  Geesh.  I have a card that I want to send her.  I bought it two years ago.  It has a mom on the cover who says something like "I don't give a shit if you like peas.  You'll eat them and you'll like them!"  On the inside it says "thanks for all the encouragement over the years."  I'm sure there would be repercussions to sending it though.  I did get out of it for awhile, sending mother's day cards from the kids.  Kind of got me out of the way.  But that grew old too.

So, I stand in the aisle, looking at the horribly overpriced cards and the overly sentimental sentiments that pertain to my mother not at all and wonder what the hell to do.  Not acknowledging her would get up her radar too much.  Besides, she thinks she was a wonderful mother.  She really does.  So, not sending one would be a huge slap in the face to her, and I really don't care enough to get into that kind of fight with her over a damn card.

I do send a nice plant.  Last year, I made a nice potted flower arrangement.  Not because I had to, but because that's what I would do if MIL and NM weren't horrible.  I had my son paint some things for them.  MIL's accidentally got claimed by her demented, elderly, on the brink of death MIL.  Of course, MIL then went to my (3 year old son) and asked him to make her another one.   My jaw dropped on that one.  That MIL couldn't just hand over the gift to the old lady blew me away.  That she then prodded my son (but really me, whom she didn't address about it) to go out and buy another project and paint another one for her pissed me off.  I would have done that for her, if she'd been gracious about it.  But the fact that she acted like a child whose toy got taken really, really annoyed me.  But not to worry, she made sure she took it back when the old woman passed away three months later.  And she made sure she told us she took it back too.

I used to try to pick out a card for MIL.  But that was an impossible feat.  What could I possibly say to the woman who guilted and obligated and controlled my husband, treated me like a second class citizen, and tried to get between me and my kids?  So, I quit doing that.  I let DH pick it out.  I always hate the cards he picks out for her.  Flowery, sentimental, with "For a wonderful mom and grandma" crap.  Blech.  But at least I don't have to do it.  Plus, she knows I don't pick it out.  She's mentioned, at least a couple of times, when she's aware one or the other of us has picked out the card.  She knows who it comes from.  And that's fine with me.

Then, I also have to pick out a card for my step-mother.  Most of those cards say something like "you've been like a mother to me."  Well, not true.  I was 17 (or so) when I met the lady the first time.  She's lived 1500 miles away and I see her once every year or so.  She married my dad when I was 22.  She is not like a mother to me and never has been.  But if I don't acknowledge her, my father gets upset.  Since her birthday is really close, I usually just send a birthday card and slap a "and Happy Mother's Day" sentiment at the end and call it a day.

What really blows me away is that sentiment is never backwards flowing.  Meaning, I never receive a card or a sentiment from them.   There isn't any, "Hey Jessie, I know you are in the midst of raising my two lovely grandkids, who are young and tireless and you're doing a great job!  So, here's to you!"  Nope, it's all about them.

Several years ago, when I was 9 months pregnant, NM suddenly needed a favor from my husband.  She wanted him to drive her up to pick up a car she'd bought near my home (and far from hers).  It would have been a minimum of 6 hours drive (but most likely more).  I would have been left alone, two weeks before my due date, with my toddler son, on the one of the few days I had to rest or get ready for the baby.  NM's sudden desire to obtain this purchase was such a coincidence, that it clearly wasn't a coincidence.  In addition, DH already had plans for one day of the weekend and he had promised to watch the baby so I could get a long needed activity done before the baby came.  It was the only thing I'd asked of him for Mother's Day, was to have this day to do this thing for myself.  So, when NM texted, saying feel free to say no if you can't, I said no.  She replied back "thanks for at least asking (DH)".

Clearly, I wasn't being thanked.  Due to the timing of my reply text, she knew I had not asked DH.  She was angry.  And that made me angry.  She didn't care, or even ask, if we had anything to do.  She had expected an immediate yes.  She didn't care that maybe I didn't want a house guest so close to my due date.  She didn't care that DH might have had some things to do.  She didn't care that this was some of the last time we were going to spend as a family of three.  She didn't care that I was 8.5 months pregnant and that chasing after another small child was physically painful for me.  And that I depended on DH's day's off for relief and a chance to rest.  All she could think about was getting her car.  She didn't try to come up with other solutions.  She complained that flying to get it would've been too expensive.  She didn't think about renting a car for the day (which still would have meant staying with me, but at least she wouldn't be taking my husband with her).  She didn't care that I'd almost died (within an hour of symptoms starting) when I'd had my first son and wouldn't have made it if I'd arrived any later.  But she would have left me, with a small child, with out a ride to the hospital under very serious concerns that I could go into labor and have the same serious issues I'd had the first time.  Nope.  She did not care.  There were so many other ways she could've solved her problem, but she expected me to put getting her (non-essential, second) car above myself, my husband, my child, my unborn child, and my well being, time, and energy.  She did end up coming through (my "poor" step-father who had been too work entangled to do it before apparantly, drove her.  They ended up staying in a hotel, but did take us to dinner.).  She simmered through the meal.  It was tense and uncomfortable (she had pulled my son's highchair right next to hers and far from me in an act of control).  I realized how she could've cared less about what was best for me at the time.   (By the way, when I had my first son, I called her to tell her the news after a very, very quick trip to the hospital and emergency C-section.  Her first reply was "Why didn't you call me?!" in an angry tone.  Not, oh my god, I'm so glad you are both OK.  I'm so happy for you.  Nope, anger because, while I was bleeding to death in a hospital bed in agonizing pain, I hadn't taken the time to inform her of  my near-fatal situation. )

I think of this story, a story that happened a week before Mother's Day and I wonder, what kind of card do you get for a mother like that?