"Clone Wars: The Secret Heartbreak of a Mom of Many"
I’m sitting in the ferry line on a gorgeous Seattle day, waiting to board. My heart feels heavy, so very heavy. We have missed the ferry we were early to catch. And this ferry is running 30 minutes late, which means we will miss 2 of Alex’s three races that we planned on being present for. (Yay for Government-run transportation!) This comes off the heels of last night: Last night Alex was out here for preliminaries….(today is the Championship). Last night was also Austin’s birthday. He had been gone all week on a mandatory school field trip for the 8th grade. Ultimately torn on which thing to attend, I chose to welcome him home and be here with him for his birthday.
But among other kids’ commitments, last night was also Ashley’s end-of-season competitive cheer gala…. where she happened to win the “Most Inspirational Teammate” award. Of course, I was at the last 2 years’ worth of End-of-the-Season galas…. but she didn’t win an award those 2 other times. THIS time, the time I wasn’t there, she won an award; and had no one to cheer from the audience and congratulate her afterwards. Of course she had her teammates…. and all their families. But not her parents. She told me not to come, told me it was OK, told me not to worry. And her sweet spirit is so kind- her heart is so easy going and forgiving. Back in the day, they used to call parents and give them a heads up that their student was winning an award. But maybe they don’t do that anymore because kids win awards all the time, even just for participating? I’m just speculating. I don’t know. What I do know is I don’t get these days back. I know kids are resilient, I know they will be OK. Wait, let me rephrase that: I hope they will be OK.
But I hate it. I hate that I can’t be in 3-8 places at once. Hate that 2 weeks’ notice for an event seems perfectly acceptable for most families (or so I’m told)…. but since our family averages planning 6 months to a year out for planning special events and “Can’t Miss” ceremonies, 2 weeks for an important event feels like 5 minutes’ notice. I hate having to prioritize my children’s events/games/parties/performances/recognition ceremonies. Hate that I can be at 30 minutes of my son’s lacrosse game, and literally 5 minutes after I leave, he scores 3 goals and I didn’t get to see it. Some parent very thoughtfully sends me a pity-pic so I can see my son’s face all lit up and excited. It’s not the parents’ fault- they are just trying to be kind.
Back to the here and now: this ferry debacle also comes off of a week where we were given 2 weeks’ notice for a very important end-of-season track banquet for my son, which we missed last year because we were out of the country. We were not told that the parents were all expected to stand up onstage with their child when the child was recognized, and thankfully another parent stood up there with our son- stood in the gap for us- but at least in my mind, a surrogate parent just doesn’t cut it at a special end of the season event. When I heard all this, it was like a kick in the guts. The school does recognize they need to get better at communicating, but they are like our family: they run a big ship and it’s so hard to ensure that everyone is informed of everything they need to be informed of. Like me, they just try to do *their* best.
This year I begged the school for the date EARLY, so we wouldn’t miss that track banquet this year. And yet; as these things tend to go, the definition of “early” for the school ended up 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS. And I’d been asking for the date- JUST the DATE (no other details or logistics) since January, and guess what? It happens to fall RIGHT on a day when Andrew and I are out of the country AGAIN. I think there would be a greater chance of being struck by lightning. But honestly? How could the school know how this really feels, as I’m sure working parents feel similarly. But at the end of the day, It’s really not the school’s world…. they aren’t concerned with, nor are they able, to accommodate everyone’s schedules for obvious reasons. I know this because I used to teach high school. So they do their thing. And if you can show up, great! If you can’t, well….sorry not sorry. It’s not that I don’t get it. I do. It just becomes problematic quickly with a family our size, and that’s not their fault.
The other piece to this puzzle is my marriage. Andrew and I still go on weekly dates together and have friendships with other couples. We still go away together just the two of us, a couple times a year. All of this is healthy and good. But the reason we will miss the track banquet this year is we had to reschedule our 20th anniversary trip from November. Last fall was when my cardiac issues began during our trip to Spain, and only now am I finally cleared to go out of the country again. So I made sure that nothing pressing was taking place during the week we were looking at going. There was an “All Sports Banquet” at school that we missed last year, so I was able to get that banquet date early and plan this trip around it, thank God. But that sweet end of season track banquet where you get up on stage with your kid? That’s the date we *just* found out about for this year, and of course, we will be gone. Part of me thinks: reschedule the trip! Go another time! But we really can’t cancel again at this point, and plus I KNOW the importance of keeping time and trips a priority in my marriage. With Andrew’s crazy schedule, this timeframe worked best for him, and since the school calendar was clear of big events (at the time we planned this trip anyway), we gotta just do it.
Most of the time I’m fine, and able to operate in acceptance and these calendar kerfuffles work out, not in an ideal way- but in *some* way, and that’s life. It’s all good, all part of having a big and full life. But some days the burden of missing kids’ significant events seems to be heavier than other days. Even though many times these are circumstances beyond our control: Like 2 or more different organizations picking the same date for an event, birthdays happening at a monthly rate in our house, or the WA State Ferry System running late, none of these things are big deals, I know that cognitively. But there are a few days like today where I just fall apart- the mom guilt is too much to bear and it turns into mom-shame. And it’s just almost unbearable.
It’s great that I have emotional and mental tools to get me through these days, and I’m truly grateful. But sometimes even though I have tools, I just don’t have the strength to use them. It’s almost like the scheduling Gods aligned and moved everything at the same time. We’re surprisingly not super busy people on the whole: we have big chunks of free time, and even have last minute free time too. But it seems like these significant events are the real challenges, they happen seasonally and seemingly right on top of eachother, and quite honestly, I think I just occasionally become exhausted from trying to make everything fit together like a giant game of Tetris. Mostly because the pieces so rarely fit together. Something always has to give, and therefore someone always pays the price—and it’s more than one someone: it’s *the rest of my kids* whose event didn’t make the priority list today. I even feel like crying writing that. It’s just absolutely regretful, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I tell myself, (and Andrew and everyone else tells me) “It’s ok-you made the best decision you could.” And “You’re putting too much focus on this, they don’t mind.” So I try to reason with myself and say to myself “you can’t clone yourself, there is no possible way to be at everything.” And I know all that, but today I don’t feel it.
Although it’s ridiculous and I know it, today I hear this internal self-chatter:
“You’re a horrible mother.”
“Your kids must feel so neglected.”
“You should have thought this big family thing through before you had so many kids, how could you have possibly expected to be there for all of them?”
“You’re a double standard. You expect your kids to be at certain events for the family or for you, but you don’t show up for their big events.”
“Oh, what? You’re going to give the excuse that you can’t be there because you didn’t get enough notice? Calendar too full? Well you just wait till you’re in the nursing home on family day-none of these guys will show up for you. They will suddenly be too busy.”
“They won’t show up for you because you didn’t show up for them.”
“You say you want to have a relationship with them but your actions don’t show it.”
“When you die, no one will remember anything else you ever in your entire life besides not show up… now, THAT, you managed to do consistently.”
So, look. At this point I can say ALL THE THINGS. I could write what I do believe to be true; which is that stinkin’ thinkin’ isn’t helpful, and is probably not accurate anyway. And of course, I would never say the above things about someone else in my shoes- ever. I would firmly tell the person ruminating that they are doing the very best that they can. Because it’s so easy to believe that for someone else! And generally, I believe it for myself too. But on these days, which I rarely have, but I have them….. I just can’t get there. I can’t bridge that gap for myself, and I can’t seem to get into that headspace. So, I am just trying to recognize my feelings, validate them, and not do any damage in the process.
But here’s the thing: Despite how I feel, I know in my brain that feelings aren’t facts. Particularly when I’m all spun out like this, I know from 42 years of experience that this feeling won’t last. That’s why emotions contain the word “motion”: because they are fluid and they change. So putting my feelings in charge has helped me….*never.* I’ll bet a million bucks this sounds cheesy and cliche to some, but it’s true that I believe that things are the way they are right now because if things were supposed to be different right now, they would be different. I believe this is how the universe (may) work… is that I just have to accept the things I cannot change and have the courage to change the things I can.
THIS PART WAS WRITTEN LATER THAT SAME DAY….
As it turned out. We made the next ferry, AND we rolled up to the track literally 5 minutes before my son’s second of three races. It truly felt miraculous that we made it in time. He saw us and waved, stripped down out of his warm ups to his running jersey and shorts, and jogged off to take his place for the 400 meter relay. Then, Andrew and I climbed up into the stands, and took seats- right next to our buddy Paul, the same one who acted as a “surrogate parent” that night for my son last year. Paul turned to us, shook his head and said, “I don’t know how you guys do it. I’m one of 6 kids and my parents didn’t make it to anything ever.” Paul couldn’t have known how much I needed to hear those words. There was no judgement, no shame, and he actually sounded slightly amazed that we were there. I wanted to reach over and embrace him and never let go.
I realized in that moment, it was time to take my power back. God used Paul’s words to snap me out of my pity party, and I was able to finally bridge that gap. What I have learned (and sometimes forget) is that it’s the relationship with each kid on the whole that matters. Yes, day to day things matter. But when they look back at their entire experience with their mom growing up, will they feel loved? Cared for? Like when the chips were down I was mostly there/available? Will they feel as if there was enough love to go around? I certainly hope so. We’ll see. But I do know if one road is blocked, all I have to do is do my best to relax and look for a detour.
All I had to do to feel better about last year’s track banquet was realize that Paul had an opportunity to be there for another kid from a big family, and my son had an opportunity to see an adult who cared about his step in and be there for him. Then I was able to put the cheer gala issue in perspective: I got my groove back and asked Ashley about scheduling to take her out to dinner and tell her just how incredibly proud we are of her in person. And the best part is? It’s better quality time anyway! After all, she sits with her team at this gala, not her parents… so it’s not like we would have been able to chat anyway. Two hours at dinner together, just with her alone sounds way preferable to some dumb gala, so I just need to remember to think outside the box of the immediate circumstance.
And: We get to schedule that dinner on our timeline. :)