parenting – Quixotic Mama

help me, mother
help me, father
i cry to the parents
i never had
the parents who
never taught me
how to be
help me, cosmic mama
show me, cosmic da
be gentle
with me
hold me; soothe me
chase away my demons.

this might be my admitting that i do need parents. the parents i got were pretty bad. some moments of good…but all in all, a crapfest. is it too late for me to appeal to some universal parents? to admit that i can’t do this on my own?

i did find myself watching a woodpecker outside the window of my house as it ate ants off of a fruiting tree, thinking to myself, my dead dad led me here…to this house. thinking that maybe it was a gift from him, from wherever he is now. an apology? an attempt to not be a shitstorm of a dad?

maybe if i open myself up to the parenting that i have been refusing ever since i figured out my parents where not going to give me what i needed (sadly, i figured this out at a very young age)…maybe if i open myself up now to being parented? maybe….

i spend all of my wishes
desperately
holding my family
together
every wish on every star
to counter act
the wishes they make
against each other
against themselves
every eleven eleven
a prayer for a truce
an end to the fighting
i have no wishes
left over
for me.

this is kind of a reflection of something a lot of parents go through, i think. giving everything to your children & having nothing left despite the advice of self-care for better parenting…

i suppose every family fights? i have only known two families, my birth family & the one i have made. it seems that fighting is genetic.
but still it empties me out. watching siblings torture each other & then cry that they are not loved….

and then i wonder if it is my fault. if i have done something to make peace an unattainable goal. if my monstrosity is what fuels their bitter fights. something they learned from me despite all my efforts to not be a monster…. especially when i find myself wishing i could make a wish for me sometimes.

this is something i have maybe always been struggling with… the idea of being a mom & the idea of being in a relationship. thanks to my own parents fucked up relationship, i seem unable to consolidate the idea of parenting with the idea of partnership.
so…trying to build some bridges.

i have always said about dusty & i–when it comes to parenting, we are the blind leading the blind.
a recent upset led to this journal page realization…so–yay! forward movement.

when i became pregnant for the first time,
i was dismayed to learn it was a boy.
“i don’t know anything about boys!” i thought.
then i had another boy.
and finally i was pregnant with my girl
realizing
“i don’t know anything about girls either!”
i used to call myself–gender confused.
this was in the early 90s before gender
was much discussed.
but i knew from the time i was five
i had both in me–boy & girl.
yet
somehow
i also had neither…
only to realize this when i became a mother
to boys & a girl.
so like everything else, i winged it
i just raised them as people
people i respected & loved
people free to develop into whomever
they were born to be.
i remember when fidgit started playing with
trucks & guns
“i guess he is a boy,” i said,
maybe stereotyping a bit
but later, he grew his hair long
got his ears pierced
and started studying art.
still a boy, i could think.
but my girl…
my girl…
she is a girl like i was never a girl
and i want to celebrate that.
i do.
but i cried today as i shopped for her
seventh birthday present
a children’s play make-up kit
really?
but i know it will make her happy
just like every time i bought a play sword for my crazy boys
& their dad looked at me like, “really?”
here’s the thing
i want my kids to be happy
i want them to be who they are
even if it is not who i am….
that’s the tricky part about being a parent, i guess…
one of the tricky parts anyway.

the photo is me in my early 20’s. fighting gender norms has always been very important to me–especially since as a teenager i found i was more comfortable in my dad’s clothes than i was in mine. i have never worn make-up (except on halloween) & i do not own a pair of heels. but now i have a daughter who drools over thrift-store pumps & uses an art marker to apply lipstick…which some people do. some people like pumps & make-up…i’ve just never been one of them. so maybe it stings a little that my little apple is falling rolling away from the tree? but if it is who she is & will make her happy….

sigh.

heaven help me if she decides to start shaving her legs.

Tag: parenting

help me

two worlds

the blind leading the blind

random thoughts…my daughter