“So, yes, maternal certitude is thrust upon one, does not allow for hesitation or nuance and is certainly not limited to biological imperative.”
That was another time, another post [the Parlour: May 15, 2006].
When I was 5 or 6, our cat had delivered a fine litter of kittens, and, after 2 days of round the clock nursing, I awoke to the startling sense of her poking one of them under my covers. Then another and another, until all of them were safely tucked in. She then demanded escape and took off for some quality alone time outside.
I curled around them as I had seen her do, and they were more than fine. Content, asleep, seemingly oblivious to change of place.
That was to be my only ever bit of instruction on motherhood, but I do believe it was sufficient.
My own mother was the second youngest of 11 children, and she had been sent to live with an older sister when she was 10, farmed out as it were, to function as housemaid. My aunt [who never had any children of her own] and she developed an odd, symbiotic relationship over the years that followed. They were extremely close, but I could never quite figure out the dynamics. My mother often seemed infantilized in her company, as if she might have been forever seeking that nurture she had missed out on along the way.
When she became a mother herself, her approach was direct and often vocalized. She fancied babies immensely, but not much once they were up and walking. She had a decided preference for her boys. But what I found most odd was that she never really seemed to have a sense of us, never really knew us. As if the only part of mothering she understood, or cared for, was that early nurturing, the kittens tucked into bed.
I found my own child’s infancy wonderful but challenging, for all the usual economic and domestic reasons. But after that every single day, year, decade, has brought a new thought or skill, smile or kindness, adventure or nuance. I learned that, for me and for most, the joys of motherhood are daily, endless, always surprising and forever exponential.
I am always sorry that my own mother missed that part, the best part, of motherhood. Taking daily delight, forever, in the ever changing and unique nature of one's own child.
2 comments:
You must have felt so proud to have held the confidence of the young mother cat, that she would tuck her babies in next to you so trustingly.
It reminds me of my own experience of aiding my cat when she gave birth for the first time in her life under the sink behind a finished basement bar in our Washington suburban home. It was clear from her anxious behavior that she was asking for assistance. We got her settled in with clean rags and waited. One kitten emerged; then two, and she handled their births with aplomb, opening up the transparent and lightly veined sacs as if she had been doing it all her life. I left her side just once to announce the second birth, and, worried, she got up from her nest to follow me up the stairs, still dripping blood. I hurried her back to bed and she gave birth to two more kittens. I was proud, and felt truly needed. I didn't leave her again until the event was really over and she was calm again.
We ended up having to hand feed the entire litter, as she developed infected mammaries and needed treatment and rest. Later I was called on by friends to midwife other litters. Since I was the only on with a book on cats, I was the only one who knew enough to sterilize scissors, tie off umbilical cords with clean cotton thread and cut them. To break open the sacs with my bare fingers and wipe the kitten clean until it began to breathe. Contrary to popular belief, not all young mother cats know how to chew the cord away, or clean their kittens from the sacs. It is not entirely instinctual. I developed a reputation for that skill among my girlfriends whose mothers would never bother with taking a cat to the vet. I was eleven years old.
Like your own mother, coming late in her own family, mine was the last of nine children (“the shake of the bag”, as she described herself.) She also has her weaker areas, but overall, I think she did okay. More than okay. I am sure we all have our blind spots and weaknesses in being mothers, so we’d better be forgiving of our own. It is not entirely instinctual!
Happy Mother’s Day. From One to Another.
Thank you for all of that!!
You know, I've never really thought of it as forgiving one's parents as much as learning to understand them, to know them. Something I, and many women I think, tend to do as we have, and raise, our own children. Men, or those who bother, seem to do it further into midlife. The spate of books one sees about fathers over the last few years, the films about WW2. I've seen it in a lot of my male friends also.
In my mother's case, from a selfish [mine] perspective, she certainly gave me the best possible gift: that unconditional love and fierce protection that keeps one almost bulletproof throughout life. I only wish, though, that she might have known that other kind of joy I described. I do think it might have provided her [as it does me, with my son] much more joy than I'm afraid she had in her life.
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