Not better, just worse.

June 6th, 2005

Parents, may I ask you a simple question?

Are you enjoying yourselves?

No, really.

I am referring to the act of parenting. If you’re not enjoying this blog, well, it’s your own damn fault for coming back here. Go find another blog that’s more to your liking, a motorcycle blog or a gardening blog or a surly postmodernist hipster philosophy blog; I don’t mind. Whatever floats your boat.

For those who are still with me, I will repeat the question: Are you enjoying yourselves?

I’m talking about enjoying your kids. Enjoying child-raising. Child-rearing. Children rearing their ugly heads—sorry, leading the witness.

I ask because I’ve seen you out in the world with your kids. And to me, it looks like you’re pulling it off, this parenthood caper. You look clean. You look even-tempered. You look composed.

You seem to take your kids everywhere. I’ve seen you on your way to supermarkets, museums, picnics, playgrounds, BBQs, children’s-book–signings, and way-past-bedtime fireworks displays. I don’t usually see you AT these events, because I am not there. I am not there because I am not clean. I am not even-tempered. I am not composed.

I want in on your secret.

But first: If you’re not sure if you’re enjoying yourself, here’s a quick quiz:

Which of the following activities would you enjoy most?

A) Taking your children to a science museum
B) Attending a baseball game with your children
C) Camping under the stars with your children
D) Being trussed to a tree and set upon by rabid wolverines and Bible-thumpers

If you chose A, B or C, you’re enjoying yourself. Please explain. Use the ‘Comments’ section. Take as much space as you need to.

If you chose D, how soon can you be here? Bring a jug of cheap Chianti and some *special* brownies.

Look, I did some scientific calculations and came up with this estimate: This week, I enjoyed approximately 7% of the total time I spent in the company of my children. Seven percent actually seems generous, but I’m afraid to go lower—on the record, at least, for fear that readers will demand my parenting-blogger license revoked.

And these days, I would rather write about my kids than spend time with them. The irony is not wasted on me.

One friend recently took a new job and had to increase her daughter’s hours at daycare. “I really miss her,” she told me. She meant it. This floored me, it really did. I felt a keen sense of regret and shame, because I can’t even begin to pretend that I feel the same way.

If I knew they weren’t coming back, I might miss them. But they do come back, over and over. And when they do, they whine and throw handfuls of yogurt and draw on the kitchen table and say mean things and shove each other on the landing at the top of the stairs and pinch me and refuse to go to bed. When I do try to be like you and take them out in public, they’re even worse, and we all turn into sniveling, sniping wretches. It is impossible for all four of us to be happy at the same time, either at home or out on the town. So given the option, we stay home. At least at home, we don’t have to waste precious energy resources trying to look cheerful so we don’t frighten you.

It blows my mind when I hear about people railing against daycare and insisting that children are always better off at home with a parent (read: mothers). Antidaycare folks should really spend a three-day weekend at our house. I understand that not all daycare is quality daycare, and that many parents who work outside of the home are forced to settle for care that is anything but ideal. And that is a terrible thing.

But when it is good, like the care we were blessed to find, it is very, very good. I am so grateful for our girls’ wonderful daycare provider and teachers, I could cry. I have cried. Were it not for these stunningly patient, profoundly kind and creative people, I would be rocking in a fetal position in the cellar beside our sump pump on a regular basis. My children might be, too. These people are the sort of baffling, good-hearted human beings who make me believe in a benevolent Other—some sort of Divine Nurturing Presence they have no trouble tapping into. They are the wood-burning stoves and cozy fireplaces of the human race.

I could not be a daycare provider. I could not be a teacher. Not even at home. Especially not at home. I feel about home-schooling the way I feel about organized religion: It seems to work well for some folks, but I’m pretty sure it’s not for me. If World War Three broke out on U.S. soil and we were forced to barricade ourselves in our house a la the Franks, I’d gnaw through the 2 x 4s on the windows within two weeks and be crawling through the rubble waving white flags made out of old nursing bras.

I am not being overdramatic. An honest point of view is what you people are supposed to be looking for in a blog, according to the New York Times. If you really have no idea what I’m talking about, then just you thank your lucky stars, and file this away for one of your rare rough days when you’re not at your best. Your children are blessed.

Mine are blessed too, not to have to spend all their waking hours with me. Blessings come in very different wrappers.

Last September, on a child-free visit to L.A., I spent a wonderful afternoon with two close friends from graduate school. Over brunch at Hugo’s, my friends revealed that they’d both been contemplating marriage to their respective beaus. One seemed in a particular hurry to fast-forward to procreation. She wanted to know all about life with kids. I chewed my lip while I decided how to answer. I told her that there were lovely moments sprinkled here and there, but that much of the time, it was not a whole heck of a lot of fun.

“But your life is better now, right?” she asked, undaunted. “Now that you have kids?”

“Not better,” I said. “Just different.”

She seemed taken aback, but I still think it was a fair response. Good thing she didn’t ask me that question yesterday at the Clark Art Institute, where Sophie and Hattie were running crankily amok, head-butting priceless works of Impressionist art and glass cases full of royal European silver.

Yesterday, I would have answered a little differently:

“Not better, just worse.”

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized, Because I said so. (Parenting)