Humor brings me back everytime

I was in a rainy period. Missing my loved ones, wondering what life has in store for me, wondering what I had in store for me...drip drip drip outside my window.

Then I went to the library and got "Bad Mother" by Ayelet Waldman...I can't put this book down. It is hilarious, and sad and sweet and I read until midnight last night - laughing out loud and feeling like someone finally said how I feel. It's a book about motherhood - all of its poop stained glory, all of its wonder, all of its pain, and all of its rewards. How can something we love so much, cause us so much guilt?

Ayelet was villified for saying (out loud and in print) that she loved her husband more than her kids. This is shocking. This is upsetting. I don't know what that would be like because I have never had a husband. Mothers roared and verbally tore her to pieces. While I'm not sure I would love a husband more than my son, I have learned after reading half of this book that she's not a monster - she's a truth speaker. It's her truth. Not mine, but hers.

I was feeling like a failure. My apartment is in constant disarray - my son was heard saying "Jesus Christ" at the top of his lungs at a theme park, my fish tank is green and my son's dentist is worried that he may get a cavity - HORROR. This book brought me back. Things are good, great even. I'm doing a good job. What does that even mean? It means the best that I can. That will have to be enough.

To quote: "There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you'd be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature. It's hard to separate your remembered childhood and its emotional legacy from the childhoods that are being lived out in your house, by your children. If you're lucky your kids will help you make that distinction. They'll look at you stricken, and beg you not to harangue the coach, not to harass the mother of th eboy who didn't invite them to the birthday party, not to intervene to resciend the lousy trade of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards they made. You want to protect them, but sometimes what you have to protect them from is the ongoing avalanche of your own childhood - crashing down on them like a hail of dodgeballs."

And finally - a humorous take on what a "Good Mother" is - what I have been trying to be, and after reading it, I realize how silly it is:

"The Good Mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neoroses and in adequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer; she remembers to make playdates, her children's clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games. And she is never too tired for [you know...adult activities]". (sorry to gross you out Nate).