Mothering motives

“IT’S SUMMEEEEER!!!!!”

So says Selena Gomez in “Summer’s Not Hot”, the song of this summer as selected by my children for me to blast as we peeled out of the school parking lot on the last day.

We have already gone to the beach twice, Coney Island for #2’s birthday, the town carnival, Chuck E. Cheese for my girl scout troop’s end-of-year party, and Field Station Dinosaurs*. 

And then I got sick and lost my voice. 

I think I need to pace myself, but this school year was so hectic, and time seems to be speeding up, propelling my children into the outside world, I guess I got a little crazy.

I wonder how my kids will look back at this time?  With my dad in town this week (the poor guy goes from his relaxing life in Florida, to running a half-assed summer camp with me in New Jersey), we have been talking about my own childhood, and it’s surprising to me how different our perception of the same events can be.  Marathon bike rides, that I swear turned me into an endurance “athlete”, were not just for the physical benefit of his children, but a way to give my poor mother some peace and quiet.  The disappointing birthday cake of ninth birthday infamy -a pumpkin roll from Baskin Robbins goes over like a bag of dog turds at a sleepover, I tell you – was a harried, last-minute errand pawned off on my dad, on the way home from work.

So I asked myself, will my children know why I do the things I do?  Or will they develop their own set of reasons for all the wonderful and pain-in-the-ass things their mother did?  So in the interest of posterity, and to assuage my dead-mother fears, I have made a short list of things I want my kids to know concerning my parenting motives.  Perhaps they will reading these entries someday after I’m gone (while cringing and half-covering their eyes**).

Here is what I want them to know:

1.     I am hard on you because the world will be too.  It’s my job to teach you to be a functioning adult and, in my eyes, that includes remembering your own homework, making your own bed, cleaning up your own messes, and, yes, occasionally, the dog's vomit.

2.     If you haven’t guessed it already, I think reading is right after food, wine and sex on the list of life’s pleasures (not in that order, sorry to make you puke), which is why we do so much of it.  If you read, you will be exposed to worlds outside of your own small one, and maybe learn to look at yours in a different light.  That’s why every third time you ask to play Wii I tell you to go get a book instead.

3.     You are the most important people in my world (tying with, but occasionally being beaten by, Daddy on particularly bad days), but not the world-world.  Act accordingly.  That means putting yourself in someone else’ shoes, using your manners, and helping when you can.  That time I yelled at you Starbucks for letting the door close on the lady with triplets in a stroller?  That’s why.

4.     You know when you’ve had a long day and I ask you if you need some time to yourself and you go lie on your bed before dinner and read or draw or day dream?  Well, everyone needs that sometimes.  Sadly, I need that around 5pm, but I have to cook dinner, so after your bedtime is the only time I get.  Mommy needs to watch inappropriate television, read a book or stare into space.  So when you come down for the hundredth time to regale me with passages you have memorized from Diary of a Wimpy Kid or ask me what’s for dinner tomorrow night, that is why Mommy occasionally (OK, regularly) loses her patience.  I’ll try it the next time you’re all watching Phineas and Ferb and see how you feel.

5.     Family comes first.  You know I try my best and quite often our house is overrun with children so you all can socialize with those your own age, but there are days I want you to play with just each other and I say no to playdate requests - and #1, that request for nine friends to sleepover was outrageous, and you know it.  Some day, Daddy and I will be gone and you will be what is left of this special little tribe we’ve created and I need you to be a unit.  I want you to not only be siblings but friends, and that only happens if you spend time together hating me and Daddy.  So no, you will not be bringing friends down the shore with us when you are teenagers. 

6.     I criticize because I love you.   I want you to know how hard I fight to not change your hair once you’ve done it yourself in that way I hate, or tell you to put on a different pair of shorts after you’ve chosen your own outfit because I know YOU think you look nice and that’s important.  But, no, I will not let you wear leggings with holes in the knees to the Spring Concert, or your ratty shark t-shirt to your preschool graduation***.   “Chew with your mouth closed…don’t pick your nose in public…leave the room if you have to fart…did you even wash your face?”,  I say these things out of love

8.     Life is short, do all you can while you’re here.  You all might think your mother is a crazy lunatic who tries to squeeze a lot (too much?) into a day, a weekend, a summer, but it’s only because I feel like there is so much out there to experience, why should we waste time?   I’d like to think I’ve instilled in you some excitement about life and the world.  Or maybe you’re tired and are too afraid to tell me, but I just want you to wake up and ask yourself, “What can I do today?” Some days that’s riding the Cyclone, some days that’s reading a book on the couch.  No matter what you do, every day should be a possibility.

And despite writing all of this, I know you will ask me one day, “Why were you always doing that?”

*A Jurassic Park style venue, involving life-sized, animatronic dinosaurs in a paleontology camp setting.  Awesome!

**Who doesn’t want to read their mother’s opinions about blow jobs?

***OK, it was technically Pop who pointed that out.