Parents as human beings

Dad and Mom, Thanksgiving 2011.

One of the strangest things I know about my mother is that she lists “The Untouchables” as one of her all-time favorite films.

If you know my mom, you know how bizarre this is. This movie is about gangsters in the Prohibition Era; it was not written by Nora Ephron and it does not star Meg Ryan. There are no flowers in it (to my knowledge).

I’ve been thinking lately about the secrets parents keep. And how well do we actually know our parents?

I’ve also been thinking about the act of getting to know one’s parents as people, not as these infallible authorities or these emotion-free caregivers. Because we often think of our parents this way, as childrearing machines. At least, I do. I don’t think I’m alone.

3 October 2009.

Do you remember the first time you caused an emotional reaction in a parent? Most of the time, we were probably too young. But I remember vividly and painfully the first time I hurt my dad’s feelings. It was so startling to me. I felt wretched, but mostly I was just astonished. It was as if I really didn’t know he even had feelings to be hurt.

Obviously, I haven’t had any kids myself, which is why this slow realization of my parents as individuals is still occurring. But I have always been very interested in parents, in general. (I wrote my undergraduate thesis on mothers, after all.) With parents, I am fascinated by what happens to their personhood, to their personalities and desires, when they have children. For mothers, in particular, this personhood is often obliterated. You become a physical and emotional slave to your children. And this is often done willingly and joyfully, but you are no longer responsible for just yourself.

I remember when I was 10 and I was tasked with writing the family Christmas letter. I went around and polled everyone on their hobbies. Grace was obsessed with playing dress-up; baby Sam hoarded sports equipment (which he still does now, come to think of it); Kelsey loved gymnastics and jumping off of furniture; Dad played tennis and built model airplanes. And then I asked Mom what her hobbies were. “Raising you kids,” she said, standing at the stove, making dinner for the six of us. “That’s not a hobby!” I protested. “What do you do for FUN?” She got this far-off look in her eyes. She didn’t answer me for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. I sighed, irritated with her for ruining my perfect holiday epistle. “Fine. I’ll make up a hobby for you.” And I did. I wrote that she liked scrapbooking.

But this is one of the joys of growing up: getting to know your parents as people. They start to tell you things they would have never told you before. They confide in you. They might even cuss in front of you now. I like this stage. I like knowing that I actually like my parents as people. I like hanging out with them. I’d invite them over to dinner at our house even if they weren’t related to me. This is great. And this is why, sometimes, I am afraid of becoming a parent. It’s because I am really enjoying being a child.

On not being the golden child

Mother with the sleepy golden child, Christmas 2010. Source: Me

TIME magazine’s cover story from this past week was a selection from Jeffrey Kluger’s new book, The Sibling Effect. The article, titled “Playing Favorites,” documents the phenomenon that is well-known to everyone with siblings: Mom and Dad have favorites. The basic premise of this article is that if your parents tell you they don’t have favorites, they’re lying. We’ve always protested this was true in our family, but now we have psychology and science on our side.

The general consensus of psychologists quoted in this research is that moms tend to favor the first-born son and dads tend to favor the last-born daughter.

In our family, this theory works out. Sam is a flawless demigod in my mother’s eyes; he is incapable of wrongdoing. Grace, on the other hand, has been the beloved of my father since she arrived as the beautiful, sassy blond angel. It’s not that Kelsey and I were unloved or ignored. Far from it. Kelsey became my father’s prize thoroughbred, the champion athlete, and I was my mother’s ongoing project. Since I was little, I always felt that she disciplined me the most because she saw herself the most in me. (And besides, even if I’m not my mother’s favorite child, I’m definitely my grandmother’s favorite grandchild.)

Father with his favorite, who hath returned from the vast expanses of the Earth. Source: Me

We are lucky in that our parents’ favoritism tends to shift around from season to season, though. We commonly joke about our standing on the parental totem pole. Dad even once made a list of his favorite children and he likes to remind us where we rank (Dublin is almost always #1, followed closely by whomever is spending the most time at home). This shifting around in ranking does make it difficult to pinpoint who is the favorite, and in that way, I think we avoided the insecurity complexes that might have come from having parents who were obvious about their favorites.

I never believed Mom when she told us that she didn’t have a favorite, because I felt like it was impossible. You have four kids, four very distinct humans. How could you not like one just a little bit more than the others? I remember finally getting her to yield slightly on this issue. “I don’t have a favorite,” she once told me, “but I love all of you in different ways.” “Aha!” I said, triumphant. “But then you do have to love some of us a little more than others! If you love us all in different ways, then it is impossible to love us all equally.” She rolled her eyes and went out to putter around in her garden. We constantly bug our parents about this, because all we want is for them to admit it, so we can each justify all of the perceived, minute injustices we suffered for the sake of parental favoritism.

The only thing I’m worried about when/if I have children is this: What if I’m not very skillful at hiding my favoritism? What if it’s evident that I love one kid more than the other? At the end of the article, Kluger gives some practical advice: Just lie about it. Tell the kids that you love them all the same. And then maybe they’ll believe you.

What about you? Are you the golden child? Do your parents still deny that they have a favorite?

(P.S. I think these photos I’ve shared are deeply revealing and provide strong proof for my long-suspected hypothesis.)

Family love: Mom

I’m writing a series of simple posts about why I love my (immediate) family. That’s all. This is the first installment, because today is my mother’s birthday! Happy birthday, Mom! All quality photographs courtesy of Meredith Perdue.

Mother Teresa

When people hear about all of the things my mother did when we were growing up, their common response is, “Is she superwoman??” And our common answer is, “Yes. Yes, she is.”

Throughout our young lives, the four of us never had any doubt in our mind that we mattered to our mother. She stayed home, but she wasn’t merely a “stay-at-home mom.” She was a full-time teacher along with being a managing partner in a successful gift store. She cooked every meal and cleaned every room. She taught us how to read and how to be kind to others. She led our family Bible studies every morning. And she never seemed weary.

I knew she was special when I was a child, but now that I am out of the house, I realize how seriously exceptional she is. There’s no one else like her. I don’t know anyone who could have done everything she did without caving, snapping, or surrendering. She sets an extremely high bar for motherhood, one that I am already anxious I will never be able to meet. But she never credits herself with her shimmering maternal abilities; she always says that God gives her the grace to accomplish everything she does.

Mom and I have always been close. I was her firstborn, after all. Sometimes I wonder if our closeness was dictated not only by temperament and birth order but also by our physical similarity. My mother and I share almost identical bodies. I was the only child who got her curly hair. If something weird happens to my body (like your left leg throbbing in pain when your period is coming), I ask her, because there’s a 95 percent chance that she has that similar quirk, too. Though our coloring differs slightly, we’re built like mirror images of each other. If I had a daughter who looked like my twin, I’d probably pay careful attention to her, too.

When I was a super-dramatic and volatile teenager, I complained about this careful attention that I received from her. I was probably the most parented child among the four of us. Kelsey and Sam were born good-natured and sweet; I was not. Grace was (and still is) as stubborn as a mule, but she yielded to instruction and adapted quickly. I was not so malleable. I didn’t take kindly to correction. And so, for most of my young life, I was my mother’s project. I needed (and still need) a lot of guidance, discipline, and stark reminders. I vividly remember those hour-long lectures I’d receive from her in my bedroom. Parenting was not a passing duty to my mother; it was her entire life. She wasn’t content to let us slip by with half-hearted morality. Where most parents might spend an hour disciplining a child for an egregious mistake, my mother would spend six.

She’s very beautiful. I often wish I looked more like her. Strangers often ask if she’s our sister. We roll our eyes, having heard it so many times, but these people are serious. She looks 10 or 15 years younger than her actual age. I think this is because she has a good heart and because my father keeps her young.

I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as she is. But I can keep trying. At least, that’s what she’d tell me to do.

Happy birthday, Mom! I love you!