Somebody's Got to Be the Mommy

This week’s blog was almost unwritten.

Gavin has been sick all week. He has an ear infection and a wicked virus. He refuses to eat. No Jello, no ice pops, no toast. Nothing but water.

We went back to the doctor yesterday. He did not find anything exotic—just an excruciatingly slow-healing virus. We are on Day 3 or 4 of sips of water every five minutes, offers of every food under the sun. At this point Gavin can have candy for breakfast if only he would eat. My healthy Gavin would jump at the offer. This other, listless boy is not even faintly interested.

Motherhood can be heartbreak. When I suffer so much with a relatively minor illness I think a lot about how other mothers cope. Mothers with chronically ill kids, mothers in Third World countries who are watching their babies die. I can’t even imagine what that’s like. Despite my attempts to rise above, even a minor illness brings a veil of sadness and worry that lifts only when Gavin is back to his normal self.

In her book Composing a Life, Mary Catherine Bateson (see last week’s blog for a link) tells the story of her bright and busy friend Johnnetta. Johnnetta had to travel to finalize her move to a Georgia college where she was president. While she was away, Johnnetta’s daughter became sick. Despite all of the backup she had orchestrated, Johnnetta rushed home without a second thought. A million mothers could tell the same story, maybe with different jobs and demands, but essentially the same story. What struck me was how this superwoman, a college president and no doubt a master thinker and organizer, summed up the simple, unavoidable fact that propelled her home without hesitation: “Somebody’s got to be the mommy.”

This week, there were many times when Gavin wanted only me, even when my husband and mother were there to help. I stole away, when Gavin was sleeping or when someone else covered, to see if I could complete a short piece. Needless to say, it was not a big week for creating literary masterpieces. Even my small attempts at creativity left me feeling a bit guilty.

Guilt is a common theme in the survey results I have received. I cope with guilt by reminding myself that I wouldn’t be “digging with a spoon” if I wanted no part of being a mommy. If I had chosen my writing as my only real priority, I wouldn’t have much interest in making it work while mothering. I would simply fit in some minimal mothering when I could, between books, book awards, and book signings!

I love Gavin passionately, and I am crazy about writing. And I know that there are tons of mothers out there with these same two passions, all working hard to strike some sort of a balance. Nancy Slonim Aronie talks about balance in her book, Writing from the Heart. She is one of those mothers with a situation I can not, do not want to, imagine. Her son was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. After a long period of grieving, she learned that even such a serious illness did not define her or her family: “It is not us; it is part of us.” From that realization, she moved on to bringing even her deepest sorrow into her creative life, to sharing what her struggle has taught. I attended her workshop, and there were a lot of tears and creative breakthroughs associated with this lesson. We all have our sorrows and strains. We all have something important to share.

What has this week taught me? I love my son; I love my writing. I can do both. Even sadness, or maybe especially sadness, can engender creativity. So I keep going.

First Dig

I tricked myself into writing today by switching to the third person in my journal. I told myself a little story:

Blocked? No such thing. Kathy made sure she got up each morning and wrote, no matter how crappy the content was. She was a writer, and writers write.

So she started her blog. She lugged her big notebook (stuffed with ideas for her unwritten book) downstairs, and flipped purposefully through the pages. She immediately found the quote she wanted, from the author Julianna Baggott.

Not that [my] children imprison me, but sometimes, I felt like a prisoner with a spoon. I could dig away, doing little bits at a time, hoping I would see the light.

Kathy felt an instant bond with Julianna, who had given her the inspiration for her blog's title.

Thank God for my bag of tricks. Writing about myself in third person lets me step out of my body, and I can write myself back into the scene. Fools me every time. Okay. I am back in the groove now. Here is what I want to start with:

Julianna's list of publications is long and impressive. But I bonded with this author mostly because her quote seemed written for me. She perfectly summarized my daily struggle for balance.

I am a working mother who writes. Sometimes my whole day is one long spoon dig. Just getting Gavin dressed for school yesterday bent a few spoons and left me clawing with my bare hands. But the particular spoon digging I want to cover in this blog is the persistence of mothers who write, who grab every moment they can to honor their creativity, yet remain good, loving mothers. Wait. That "yet" disclaimer did not belong in the last sentence. I am a better mother because I write, and I am a better writer because I mother. That is the whole point of this blog. Writing and mothering does not need to be an either-or equation. Digging with a spoon is worth it, even though you may need to stop and sob (or at least vigorously scrub your fingernails) once in a while.

This balancing of art and motherhood is no small feat. It deserves some serious attention, and some solidarity.

I wrote a piece for the Write from Home Web site recently, about my latest mother-author idol, Harriet Beecher Stowe. She had 7 children before she published Uncle Tom's Cabin. When I heard that, I practically had her picture framed. Here is the link: http://www.writefromhome.com/wwc/489.htm

Next Saturday, my Mona Lisa Moment.

PS the quote from Julianna Baggott is taken from an excellent interview by Cheryl Dellasega, from the Mothers Who Write series.