Sometimes people ask me what I plan on doing after I finish my M.A., and sometimes I answer honestly, which is of course “I don’t fucking know.” But other times I answer by explaining my “plan,” which at the moment, is to apply to PhD programs in English literature, with an emphasis on American Studies. And quite often, the response I get is something like this: “Are you sure you should be putting your children through that?”

It just happened the other day. A fellow grad student asked me that very question. I looked at him dead in the eyes and responded “If I were a man, would you be asking me that question?”

He laughed and said “no.” And then I told him he was a douchebag and we both laughed. And to be honest, I wasn’t really offended, because I don’t really get offended that often, but especially when people say stupid shit and then own it.

As hard as this may be to believe, I frequently say stupid shit.

But I must admit it got me thinking. I’ve been surprised by how many people have responded to me with that exact question when I tell them my “plan,” (I’m putting that word in quotation marks because come on, really? a plan? Can you have a “plan” with three kids and a husband and personality like mine? My first “plan” was to get an M.A. in English…in 2-3 years. IT’S BEEN SEVEN. Case closed.).

And the thing that really got me thinking is how that voice, “are you sure you should be putting your kids through this?” has been like a low hum in the back of my mind for the past 11 years, yammering the same message in relentless monotone: “But what about your KIDS? What are you doing to your KIDS?”

You know why it hurts? You know why the question stings?

BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW, people, and I never have.

I have never known what’s “best” for my kids. How the hell should I know?

I’m not them.

Okay. Fine. I know a few things. I need to love and nurture them, teach them what it means to be a decent human. I know I need to tell them the truth, hold, hug and kiss them, own my shit when I screw up with them, too. I know I need to take them places, expose them to the world, ask tough questions, make them work, teach them some fucking manners. I know I need to help them find out who they are, whatever that looks like, and back the hell off in case who they are doesn’t match who I think they should be…But  mostly, all I really know is that my job is to help them grow into the people they are meant to become.

Beyond that, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing here.

And yet, people continue to ask me these questions as if I’m supposed to have some sort of answer. I’m supposed to like KNOW. Is there some sort of guidebook I’ve missed? Were other mothers endowed with a mother-compass, guiding their feet along a well-marked path toward the Promised Land of perfect children developing into perfect adults?

This woman once wrote on my blog “You’re only as happy as your saddest child.” When I read it, my stomach did a flip on itself, because quite frankly I think that’s the biggest crock of bullshit I’ve ever heard, and its implications made me a little sick.

The happiness of my children composes my own? Nonsense.

That’s the most insidiously selfish statement I think anybody has ever told me in regards to parenthood; it’s the most fucked-up thing I can imagine putting on your kid. Imagine that: “Hey kids, you are not only responsible for your own happiness, but you are now also responsible for MINE. So don’t blow it! ”

In other words, you are not free to live your life, because I’m dependent on you for the worth of my own, which means if you blow it, you’re not just ruining your own life, you’re ruining mine. So just remember that, kiddo, when you’re out there trying to navigate the insane waters of existence: YOUR MOTHER will never be happy unless you’re happy – so add that to your burden, please, as if life itself isn’t quite enough.

Um, thanks, but I unsubscribe from that theory.

Sorry, world, but I am not defined by my kids.

There. I said it.

There are these children in my home, and I love them with every shred of my being, and I am devoted to them with all my heart, and I try my best for them every day, but they are not me.

And I am not them.

And there’s this side of me that has other plans, and it always has, and it isn’t quite fulfilled through the making of lunches and cleaning of houses and doing of homework. I care about the parent-teacher conferences, but they aren’t the most important moment of my week, ever.

I am not ripping on stay-at-home moms. I feel silly even writing that disclaimer, but I need to be clear. What I’m saying is that I believe with all my heart that the greatest gift I can give my children is an example of a person who has grown fully, into herself, becoming the person her heart yearns to be, walked the path her soul has carved, bravely, firmly, lovingly.

Whatever that looks like.

If it’s getting a PhD she does it completely.

If it’s raising goats and canning pickles on a farm in Vermont, she does it completely.

If it’s working as an administrative assistant at a law firm 45 minutes away, she does it completely.

If it’s home-schooling 5 kids, making lovely dinners for her husband each day by 5pm sharp, served with a smile and warm heart…

Then by God, she does it completely.

And she does with everything she’s got, with all that she is, like there is nothing else in the world.  She does it like a warrior. She does it like a champion.

She does it like a goddamn rockstar.

Because those kids will watch that, ladies, and they will learn. They will watch it and they will see a human brave enough to live, brave enough to drop the ideas of the world, shake their expectations, brush their judgment off her heart like a bit of dust on the shoulder of an old wool coat.

And they’ll learn, as she moves, as she struggles, as she walks out the door to write that paper, as she comes home after one more day of what has become a bull-dog like devotion to her cause, as she straightens the pillows on the couch, tucks the baby in, falls exhausted into bed, one more time, they will learn:

To thine own self be true.

Like a boss.

To thine own self be true.

And I guess we’ll know then, someday, when we watch our kids soar into themselves without looking back, with the strength we found in the moments we didn’t know, didn’t know what was best for them, but held on anyway to the truth in ourselves, because there was really nothing else to do.

I guess we’ll know, then, when we watch them live in freedom, and find ourselves doing the same, that it was “best,” for them.

And for us.

I feel the urge to write something interesting.

I want to be funny.

I want to make you laugh.

But I’m gonna level with ya. I don’t have much in me right now.

Sometimes, I’m a shit-talking nutcase who thinks EVERYTHING is funny and cracks herself up in the car writing blasphemous things in her head. I get home, crank something out, and laugh while I’m doing it cause it’s fun and it’s real. There is no effort.

But lately, there’s been effort.

It’s ALL BEEN EFFORT. My whole life has been effort.

I’m in one of those spots where I just don’t see it. I’m not seeing the meaning. I’m not catching the vibe. I’m not smelling any damn roses.

I feel a little lost, though I’ve been here before.

I want to blame it on my life. I want to blame it on our lack of money, or the fact that I hate our neighborhood, or that I’m tired or worn out or stressed about school…or cause I have no idea where I’ll be in a year – will I have a job? Will I go on for my PhD (shhhh! Don’t tell! But I’m thinking about it.). Will my husband still be wishing he were doing something else? Will I have lost these final 30 pounds? When is it going to change?

Will it ever get smooth?

And when, people, WHEN, will I grow up?

When I was a kid I had this idea that someday life would make sense. That there was this place, right around the corner [Right there! I can almost see it!]  that I was heading for. It was waiting for me, and when I got there I would know. I would just know.

The hole would be filled. The questions answered. The hunger satisfied.

But instead I have life. Moment to moment, fired at point-blank range.

Nothing else. Just life.

Sometimes I look around and I see no meaning in any of this. The grind. The working. The marriage, the kids. The dog pissing on the floor. The boy who won’t EVER JUST FUCKING DO WHAT HE’S TOLD. The girl who insists on growing up and asking deep questions I’m unqualified to answer. The toddler, oh, the toddler, who runs runs runs and drags and pulls and sucks my heart right into her smile and my whole life into her chubby little palm, as she tows the last shred of my energy with her constantly spinning feet.

I want to blame all that. But I can’t.

Because I know life is RIGHT HERE, right now. This IS the spot “around the corner.” This is the space where meaning lies…there is nothing else.

And these kids bolting around, driving me nuts, are like flashes of lightning against a night sky – so astonishingly beautiful – if only I can catch a glimpse.

See them for what they are.

Boom.

See the shattering light of their energy against a limitless night sky.

But instead, lately, I’ve been preferring to stare at the small dark circle around my own wandering feet. A tiny patch of ground.

I know it’s my choice. I know I’ll pull out of this. I know my perspective is small right now, and self-centered, and ineffective.

But sometimes, damn it, life just isn’t inspirational. It isn’t funny or cute or even vaguely interesting.

It’s just WHAT IT IS.

And the hardest part is that I am just what I am. A flawed human being, unable to perform all the time. Telling myself “Janelle! Write something funny! Be entertaining!”

And I’ve got nothin’.

But I write anyway, cause this is the truth, and I don’t want to be fake with you, and I don’t ever want to write because it’s what I think people want to hear, like it will cast me in a better light, make me seem better than I am, more than I am.

It’s funny, you know, the way when we’re kids we’re just SURE we’re gonna be something incredible – something special. Change the world. Be president.

And then we find we’re just one more human, trudging along, dodging life’s bullets, passing whole days sometimes, staring at nothin’ but the ground.

And I have a feeling some of you, maybe, sometimes, can’t quite find the sky either. [Even though it’s right above our damn heads.]

And maybe that’s why we’re all here, crazy as hell, laughing our asses off, looking for it somewhere.

You know what’s scary? Now that I have a kid who’s almost 11, I somehow consider the baby/toddler time the “easy” portion of parenting.

Yes, I know. “Easy” is perhaps not the most appropriate word. Being 20 in college is “easy” (though at the time, we are somehow just so overwhelmed with it all). Sitting on a beach with a beverage and an open schedule is “easy.” Somebody said Sunday mornings are “easy,” but I beg to fucking differ. Sunday morning is when I realize all the things I didn’t do on Saturday now must happen today.

How is that easy?

Anyhoo, the thing is, when you have a baby, you just respond to his or her needs. And yes, they have a remarkably large number of needs. But I don’t believe a baby manipulates or gets crafty with the parents. I know there are parents out there who believe a baby exits the womb with a parental-unit attack plan, but I don’t buy it. I think a baby cries when it needs something and so my job is clear: do something when my baby cries. Meet needs. Love. Play. Repeat.

But then, all the sudden (not that this happened 8 years ago in Sacramento with Ava or anything) your 2-year-old starts banging forks on a table in a Chinese restaurant and throwing her body across the bench seat, totally ignoring you as you realize “redirection” is not going to work in this particular situation and suddenly you’re like “Oh, damn. We better start disciplining this creature right now.”

And it’s all downhill from there.

Because then, all the sudden, you’re responsible for instructing and guiding and doing the real parenting work, which will either mold the kid into a well-adjusted human or break her soul.

No pressure though.

And you can read all the books and ask all your friends, subscribe to some “school” of parenting that tells you exactly how to talk to your kids, how to handle each situation, how to not break souls, or, you can be like me (though I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it), and just go into important parenting moments (the crossroads, the high-stakes shit, the deal-breakers) totally unprepared, vastly confused, and slightly terrified, hoping your gut will pull through with something, cause fuck me I have no ideas.

Sounds like a winning combination, right?

Sometimes when these real stumpers come up, when I’m looking at my kid and they’ve just behaved really badly, or the kids at school are mean to them, or something profound has come up in their young lives that must be addressed in one profound way or another – I get this pang of anger toward motherhood, for making me the one responsible for this shit, but providing me no actual tools to do so.

Recently we were at my mother-in-law’s house. After dinner, we were all upstairs in her office when I realized it was nearing 8pm and we needed to get home. So I started the “let’s go” broken-record routine (you know, where you repeat the same words 6 thousand times and not one single kid acknowledges you until you start yelling and barking empty threats?)…ten minutes later, Georgia was removing the contents of a box she found, Rocket was engaging in some nonsense involving headphones and a fork, and Ava wanted to look at a pile of photographs she found in a box on the floor. She asked me if she could look. I said “No,” and then continued my efforts toward departure.

Five minutes later, when I was nearing my breaking point, I turned around and saw Ava sitting on the floor, looking at the pile of photographs.

And for some reason, I got really, really mad. So mad, in fact, that it took every shred of my restraint to just say (okay, fine, maybe yell): “Ava! What are you doing? I just asked you not to do that! LET’S GO!!!”

When we got in the car, I was fuming. Something about the blatant disregard for my direction infuriated me. It was the way she just said nothing, indicated nothing, but sat down and just DISOBEYED, right in my face.

Now, if it were Rocket, a special gentleman who blatantly disobeys me approximately 4 thousand times a day, I wouldn’t have been trippin’ so much. But it was Ava. Ava doesn’t do that. It was like WAY out of character.

And as I was talking to her in these angry exasperated tones, trying to decipher what the hell just happened, trying to be The Effective Disciplining Mother, I looked at her sitting next to me with her frizzy little head and dusty jeans, and I saw a look on her face that leveled me. It was a new look. It was a look of apathy. It was a look of boredom. It was a look that announced in no uncertain terms, “Mom, you’re talking to me, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you’re saying.”

And in that moment my voice fell silent. I looked out the window at the barely decipherable mountaintops against the rising moonlight. I saw the gorgeous order of the farmland rows, the perfect symmetry of the dirt, the impeccable lines of green, and its harmony seemed to mock my own chaos. My eyes filled with tears as the thought crept in, so clearly, so brightly, so plainly: “she’s turning into a teenager.” A couple of them poured down my cheeks. I looked out at the land, silent, turned my head away.

I felt like a stranger in this car, sitting next to this kid. My feet were on no ground, my heart yearned for an indication of my role in this new story, my task in this moment, my spot next to this person, who I barely knew and yet knew completely, with all my soul.

I felt the truth like a dagger: she’s becoming her own person for real now. She’s walking a path that doesn’t involve me the way it did 5 years ago, or last month, or maybe even yesterday.

I felt disarmed, fumbling to find myself in this new place, this place that just showed itself, this very moment, in the form of a kid with a hint of adult, bubbling just beneath the surface.

I wanted to reach out and grab her and beg her not to go. I wanted to scream with all my might “Don’t ever disobey me! Don’t you dare walk away! YOU MAY NOT GO!” I wanted to whisper against her petal soft cheek “Please, baby girl, stick by my side. Tell me how to make this all right.” Tell me how to get through these next few years.

Tell me how to let you go, little by little, as you need it, even though I can’t.

I just can’t.

And yet, I could.

I’m doing it right now.

I knew my place was not to scold her. My place was to hear her, see it from her side. I found myself asking “Ava, did you look at those pictures because you couldn’t see what my reason was for saying ‘no?’ Did it seem to you I had no purpose, like I was just telling you no for no reason?”

She answered with a barely perceptible sigh of relief, emphatically, “Yes. That is why.”

Then something came out of my mouth that I really I didn’t expect. I grabbed her hand and said “Ava, if I ask you to do something and you don’t know why, please ask me. Question what I’m saying and I promise you, I’ll explain it. If I’m wrong, if I don’t have a valid reason, I will say ‘yes.’ But please, baby, don’t just ignore me. Don’t just walk your path behind my back. I will always do my best to be reasonable with you, but you’ve got to trust me, and I’ll trust you.”

She smiled and said “okay, mama,” and I told her I loved her and we cruised into the moonlight, on this new ground I never asked for.

Me and my little girl, who’s moving right along just fine, into the fringes of adulthood, dragging me behind, kicking and screaming and confused, wondering how we got here and where we’re going now, thinking of the toddler banging on the table just a few years ago, wanting to hold her and put her on a damn “time out,” but instead settling for a spot beside her.

Right here, beside her.

In awe, in love.

In that strange place of motherhood, where only your gut can guide you.

us, then.

I’ve been told that many programs exist to educate young women on the perils of early motherhood. You know, avoid teen pregnancy and such. I’ve only heard of this sex education because I went to a Catholic girls’ school. We don’t talk about those things there. Plus, none of us were going to have sex because we were saving ourselves for marriage.

Obviously.

Now, I imagine that much of this teen-pregnancy/smart-sex/use-protection-or-die education centers around the economic burden of motherhood, the extreme responsibility, the destruction of one’s social life, and perhaps the reality of missed or limited opportunities facing a girl who’s 15 and pregnant.

This may work. But I really believe there is a better way. When I think back to my teenaged self, so cool, so hot, so together and omniscient, I can’t help but think my sorry ass would not have given two shits about economics or social life or responsibility, because I didn’t really know much about those things. I had no perspective. I had no idea that not leaving your house for 2 months or talking only to toddlers would make me want to crawl in a hole and wither. I had no idea how hard it is to pay only the really late bills because the current ones still have a tolerance window (I mean bills don’t even become real until they’re a month late, right?).

However, there is one thing I understood, and that’s humiliation. I understood that. That hit my fragile egoic self where it hurt. I also understood things that are fucking disgusting. For example, dog shit.

And so, I propose that we tell young girls stories like the one I’m about to tell. We could compile our stories and market the anthology as The Best Birth Control Ever.

It would be like that camp they send disturbed youth to – the one where they attempt to shock them into obedience – they yell at them and take them to prisons and abandon them in the wilderness, doing their best to scare the living shit outta them until they snap out of their delusion and realize they’re ruining their lives. It would be like that, only for motherhood.

Remember Laser? Oh yeah, sweet little bundle of Labrador. Sweet, psychotic bundle of holy-fuck-what-was-I-thinking-getting-a-puppy. Yes, him.

Anyhoo, we were in Tahoe.  We went to the grocery store. Mac, the older kids and my mom went into the store for supplies and Starbuck’s while I waited in the car with Georgia and both dogs. While I waited, I opened the door next to Georgia’s car seat so I could play with her and prolong the point at which she loses her fucking mind because she realizes she’s trapped in a seat and there are things happening without me damnit! While standing there, Laser was sort of jumping on the seat next to her, on the other side of the car. I ignored him. At one point, however, he put his nose across Georgia’s lap and I noticed some brown stuff on it. I thought it was peanut butter.

[Warning: this story is disgusting. Remember: SHOCK TREATMENT. We’re going for shock here people. If we sugar-coat we won’t be as effective.]

I leaned over to see what was on his nose and I realized in a moment of horror that it was not peanut butter  at all. It was poop. It was dog poop. I determined this thanks to my keen olfactory senses. The  next few moments happened in slow motion, but so fast I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was like a car accident. Time slows down but it’s moving at lightning speed.

I look at the seat under  the dog. There is a giant pile of dog diarrhea. My heart stops. Things are dire. Life and death, Janelle. Don’t fuck up. I assess the situation. He’s about to step in it. I must get him out. I bolt to the other side of the car, open the door.

My whole life is hinging on the successful removal of this dog from the car, but I cannot allow him to touch the pile of shit. I cannot fail! I grab his leash and try to pull him toward me, but because the dog is fucking idiotic, he of course flails, steps in the poop and SLIDES ACROSS THE SEAT, dragging the pile of crap across my entire seat and his body. As he jumps out of the car he brushes against me and drags the back of the leash across the morass of excrement.

So there I am, dog shit on my arm, my shirt, my hand. A puppy hopping around psychotically, covered in shit. Holding a leash covered in shit. Staring in awe and wonder and shock at the most enormous pile of dog diarrhea I’ve ever seen, covering the better part of the back seat of the only car we have – the one we need to DRIVE IN and SIT IN.

And I’m stunned. I’m paralyzed. There is no way out. I’m only in survival mode now.  I’m trying to move the dog away from me. He’s jumping on me. Georgia’s yelling. I’m holding the leash out. I have no idea what to do. There is no solution. If I put the fucking dog back in the car we have more shit in the car. But I have to get this off of me and I have to clean my seat.

FYI, there is something infinitely disturbing about being covered in animal excrement.

I hear a noise. I look down. Laser is vomiting. You think I’m kidding? NO. NO I’M NOT. Evidently he ate half of a bully stick, WHOLE. He ralphs ALL OVER THE GROUND NEXT TO ME and almost immediately begins eating it.

I pull him away. He pukes again. Tries to eat it. And I want to die.

So yes, that’s right people. I was standing in the Safeway parking lot covered in dog diarrhea with vomit at my feet and a shit-covered dog attacking me, next to a car doused in crap. And I was alone.

And this, my friends, is my life. Two people asked me if I needed help. I said “um, yes. I need you take this dog and my life. Right now.”

All I could do was stand there and wait for help. I waited for at least 10 minutes in that condition, while people walked by, glanced at me, the dog, the vomit, heard the toddler screaming.

[I wonder how Snooki would have handled that situation.]

Finally Mac came out, horrified of course, bought upholstery cleaner and rags and disinfectant wipes. He held back the dog, tried to clean him, while I cleaned myself and scrubbed dog shit off my seat for AN ENTIRE HOUR.

Now, perhaps our teenaged wonder may read this story and think “Ah, that’s got nothing to do with motherhood. That dumb broad got herself into that trouble, buying a puppy and going on trips and shit.”

But to that I declare: IT IS THE FAULT OF MOTHERHOOD. Why? I’ll tell you why.

Step 1: Have a kid.

Step 2: Have another kid. Maybe another, to give the first kid siblings.

Step 3: Raise them for awhile.

Step 4: Begin doing things that families do, such as buy a fucking Labrador.

Step 5: Stand in vomit piles in a parking lot while covered in dog shit next to your desecrated vehicle.

You see? One thing leads to the next. And what’s the first step? Have a kid.

The jump from kid to dog shit is such a tiny one. And even if you never get a dog, kiddo, there will be excrement in your life and you will be covered in it. Absolutely more than once.

Are you gettin’ that? SHIT. On your skinny jeans.

And that, my friends, is why you don’t want to get pregnant as a teenager…because nobody looks cool doused in dog crap. Or kid crap, for that matter. And once that kid comes, there ain’t no going back.

It’s crap for you, baby.

That’s your future.

Choose wisely.

I’m here. Waiting. To shit on you.

So you know how the kids keep writing those “awkward moment” cards, and you see them on Pinterest all the time – they seem to materialize out of nowhere and yet, there they are. Repeatedly. Yeah, well, I had an awkward moment recently and I’d like to share it with you.

To do so, I made an “awkward moment” ecard because I’m hip and cool (stop laughing) and all the cool kids are doing it. No really. Stop fucking laughing.

Yes, indeed. That is an awkward moment, and it happened to me recently.

My daughter, Ava, is 10, and she’s an amazing kid (right. as if I would have said something different) – very, very bright, witty, driven, sensitive and thoughtful – but she has a temper. Oh holy shit it’s a big one. Sometimes, when the stars are aligned just perfectly (or something), she loses her shit at her brother. She gets in his face and screams. She’s terribly mean, fuming with all kinds of rage in her voice “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!!”

And I get upset when she does it. She alarms me. The look in her eye is shocking, the rage in her voice disturbing. The other day she did it. I watched her tower in fury and her brother shrink into himself and I opened my mouth to stop her, but as the words were coming out…”Ava, why are you talking to your brother that way? Why are you acting like that?”…a blinking neon banner ran across my mind, the answer to my very own question: Because you, you fucktard, YOU act like that. She learned that from YOU.

And I realized I was punishing my child for acting exactly like me.

It was not a pretty moment.

You know there are things I do as a mother that fall into the “haha I’m a bad mother let’s all laugh” category. Like feeding them toast for breakfast 3 days in a row because I can’t get my act together to make real food. You know, no big deal kind of things.

But then there are bad mother moments that I’d rather not talk about it. The real shit. The seedy dark underbelly. MY OWN PERSONAL, SERIOUS FLAW AS A MOTHER AND HUMAN. (again with the all caps. why can’t I stop?)

And for me, it’s losing my temper.

Sometimes I raise my voice. Yeah whatever who doesn’t. But sometimes, oh sometimes, I lose it. I simply explode. I get in their faces and yell. And you know what I’ve said?

“What’s wrong with you?!!!!!”

I see their faces and I want to die. The fear in their eyes. The sadness in their shoulders. And I cave into myself as I’m doing it, trying to make it their fault, screaming while simultaneously totally aware that I am acting horribly but I can’t stop. Because I’m seeing red. I’ve crossed the line.

And when it’s over, I can’t stand the idea of myself.

Because I know I am the problem. It is not them. And it never has been. In those moments I use my power as a mother to bully them, because I’m bigger and stronger and louder and I think I have some right to dominate – to GET MY WAY – and I don’t mean to lose my shit…I do not believe this is an effective parenting method – this is not the person I want to be – but sometimes people I’m just so tired. And I repeatedly fail to take care of myself. I find myself tired and hungry and running late and headaches and noise and it all builds, builds, builds until. Something. Clicks.

Boom.

And it isn’t funny at all.

 I walk away and breathe and I know I’ve blown it. I really fucked up.

I want to crawl in a hole. I cry. Invariably. I want to take them in my arms and beg them to forgive me.

But I don’t beg. I gather myself and I walk back and apologize for my poor behavior just like I would any person who I’ve wronged. I own my shit. I tell them I’m human. I tell them I lose my temper too, and I’m learning patience, just like them. And maybe we can work together on this stuff, both of us, all of us, trying to be better.

But I am the adult and should know better. And you are a wonderful child and this isn’t your fault and if I could figure out how to never do that shit again, my God I would so, so please, please hang with me little one, as I navigate this strange world of motherhood — where the stakes are so high and the guidance so scarce.

And I wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

Two days later I open Facebook and read a post from Peggy O’Mara of Mothering magazine that reads “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice” and it becomes clear to me that mothers don’t do what I do. Mothers read things like that and they are filled with inspiration – they take that information and transform it into the elusive ability to only speak to their children in hushed soothing tones…good, wholesome words of support, to become a solid inner voice.

Me? I read things like this and think are you fucking kidding me? If this is true my kids are finished. Don’t put this crap on me. Don’t tell me I BECOME THE VOICE IN MY CHILD’S HEAD. I can’t be all there is! I can’t!

But if she’s right, if my poorest moments are the loudest voices in their head, if they sit in school and wonder “what’s wrong with me” because their mother said it a few times…if that’s true, well I’m going to give them the rest of the story, the other half: Your mother is a human being who is doing the best she can and loves you with every fiber of her imperfect being and so that voice, that voice that yells, it is only ONE voice. There is another. There will always be another. There is the world and god and there are grandmothers and teachers and friends and there is that mother who would lay down her life for you.

[Maybe while yelling, but still.]

The other day I called Ava after treating her poorly. At the end of our conversation I said “Ava, you are a great kid” and I said it with tears in my eyes and a cracked voice and heart.

She responded with words so full of love it took my breath away. Without hesitation, without affectation, she said confidently “And you are a great mother.”

I can only go forward. Each day, one foot in front of the other.

Moving toward becoming the person my kids already think I am.