Am I Doing This Right?

An accounting of my failures as a mother, and a reminder that the successes are often intangible

I have no caption for this picture, but I really like it. Photo by author.

Jon Bellion’s words kick us off today: 🎶 I always fear that I’m not living right.🎶

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Sometimes I worry I’m going about this parenting thing all wrong.

Because there are days when cheese puffs are breakfast.

And there are times when I snap at them because I can’t get a complete thought to form in my head, much less pass my lips, before someone else’s words break mine into tiny, irretrievable fragments.

More than half the time, my daughters are already home, rummaging through the pantry, before I realize I forgot to pack an afternoon snack for them to have at math club. And if I did it’s something boring like apple slices, not cookies and milk like the other kids get.

I often let them use the wrong apps, for too long, especially on mornings when I want to steal an extra few minutes of peace before I have to be alert enough to manage four irrelevant conversations simultaneously.

Most days, I don’t insist on clean rooms and clean bodies and clean laundry. But when I do, it needs to be done right now.

At least a dozen times a week, I say no for no good reason—other than that saying yes would demand too much of me at a time when life’s vampire teeth are already firmly planted in my neck and I don’t have more coordination, organizing, or chauffeuring left in me.

Sometimes I bribe the little one to use the toilet, or let him get away with hitting me or using a swear word—because I know it’s wrong but he’s kind of adorable when he says it, and he’s tiny so it doesn’t hurt much, and it’s easier to bribe than to engage in a battle of wills with someone who might not be as smart as me but who is damn sure more persistent.

When I’ve had enough, I beg to be left alone for a bath, or tell them to stop talking while I finish this email, or ask the big ones to watch the little one while I sneak in a half-hour of work or a Latin dance workout in my basement.

I am constantly on a call.

I let the toddler dig in the dirt all by himself, even though he asks me to join him, because it’s to wet or too cold or too hot or too windy or I just have to finish this one last thing. There’s always another thing.

When they’re clingy, and when they’re anxious, and when they’re rude to each other—or to me—I wonder what I should have done differently and curse myself for not already knowing.

I’m not present enough, not engaged enough, not involved enough, not affectionate enough.

I let them be mean to each other, hoping they’ll work it out. They never do.

And sometimes—when I’ve fielded the same complaint for the thirty-seventh time today, and the little one is trying to ride the dog while also yelling at me that he wants milk and a snack, and the big ones are each outlining the multitude of ways in which the other sucks, and the kitchen counters are piled with dishes even though they were spotless this morning, and one of my stocking feet steps in cold water next to the freezer door while the other is stuck to a dried-up puddle of apple juice—sometimes, I explode.

Sometimes I wonder how mine could be the right kind of mothering, punctuated as it is by impatience, by inattention, by an ache to remember what it was like before these little tornadoes came to live with me.

But there are also other times.

Like when my 11-year-old texts me, “I love you,” every day at 1:55. Or when she stands up for the rights of marginalized people, even despite her nervousness to call attention to herself. Or when she asks us to buy materials so she can build homes for those who don’t have one.

Or when my nine-year-old announces to the school that her New Year’s resolution is to be an activist. Or when, one night at a restaurant, she sees my hands are full and puts the dinner into the takeout boxes for me. Or when she holds the door for a stranger.

Or when my three-year-old climbs into bed with me in the wee hours, kisses my shoulder and says, “Oh, I love you, too, Mama. Are you happy?” before falling asleep on my pillow.

And then there was that time when, broken by the unfairness of the world, I shared my sadness with them, and they gathered next to me—one on the right, one on the left, and the other on my lap—and the girls’ tears mixed with mine, and the baby gave me a hug and a kiss and said, “Now are you happy?”

We sat there like that, breathing and weeping and holding each other, until we were not sure who took the first breath or who was holding whom.

And, for all the times I’ve failed, it’s times like those when I know that I’ve done something right.