like<\/em> you!\u201d<\/p>\nFollowing the rules of nature and metaphor, the plate flew back in my face. But that didn\u2019t stop my daughter from crying, my young son from running away in fear, and my middle daughter from staring into space, escaping into the methodical chewing of her apple.<\/p>\n
With just four minutes until the bus\u2019s ungodly 7:15 arrival, I had a decision to make. Would I let the school bell ring on my wrath, or would I try to take something wrong, whatever it was, and turn it into something right?<\/p>\n
I should have harnessed some fail proof strategy. But I had once again fallen into a tar pit of parenting confusion. I\u2019ve never been into all the \u201cmommy\u201d stuff: magazines and playgroups; Pinterest and its neurotic cupcakes; disciplined, highlighted hair. Sure, I drive a minivan, but I\u2019m quite certain I drive it ironically. From the moment I got pregnant, I determined to stay myself, a self who just happened to have kids. Just another poet and English teacher with a bouncy seat in the living room, and a dark, inner vortex of anger she never knew existed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I hate apologizing to my kids. And I hate having to do it under pressure. But I made the call:<\/p>\n
\u201cLydia. Come down.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up the steps to find she had never made it to her room. She sat on a middle stair, her thick hair hanging over her face like a mushroom. This was not school-ready hair. After all, our spat had originated from her clearly expressed dissatisfaction with my ponytail-making skills. Another one of those universal mom know-how\u2019s that never quite made it into my arsenal.<\/p>\n
She scooted her way down. Bump. Bump. Probably just one minute till the bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry I was mean, Mom,\u201d she mumbled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry I threw a plate. Of course I like you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But I couldn\u2019t let it stop there. \u201cYou know I\u2019m a person, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a person. Like you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm\u2026yeah-uh?\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh, the condescending \u201cUm, yeah-uhs\u201d that had seemingly infected the whole community of fifth grade girls.<\/p>\n
I heard the bus rounding the corner. Her eyes bolted from me to the door as her younger sister slipped out and ran down the driveway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not just a mom, you know? I can\u2019t just\u2026take it over and over without getting upset. People get mad when people are mean to them. I\u2019m a person. You know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh huh. I need to go, Mom. Sorry. Don\u2019t forget I need more wide-ruled paper for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
She ran a brush through her hair, dropped it on the floor, and careened through the garage.<\/p>\n
Probably none of my words sunk in, but I felt calmer having said them. Maybe one day she would remember my statement as one of life\u2019s truths, an \u201cah-ha\u201d memory when she finally recognizes me as both fully mom and fully human. Sure, she\u2019s only ten, but I still remember snippets of conversations I had with my mom at that age. Although now all I could summon was her saying, \u201cWish in one hand and pee in the other, and see which one fills the fastest.\u201d<\/p>\n
All was quiet. My son stabbed away happily at his tablet with sticky fingers. \u201cCan you make me a smoothie, mama?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cNot now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith<\/em>, Anne Lamott recalls losing her cool with her son: \u201cIt\u2019s the worst thing I know, to shout loudly at this 50 lb. being with his huge trusting brown eyes. It\u2019s like bitch-slapping E.T.\u201d<\/p>\nIt feels terrible to yell at a smaller, helpless person you\u2019ve brought into your home, true, but it\u2019s not all that crazy. An average person with a full luggage set of dysfunction gets pregnant or somehow convinces a social worker to approve an adoption home study, and suddenly she is expected to breathe Lamaze-style through every horrific challenge to her self-worth. I don\u2019t believe in some mystical, instinctual ability to sacrifice for one\u2019s child. I love my kids, but I often have to work at that love.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I can\u2019t make myself get off the couch to tuck them in at night. I want to spend my extra money on cute new boots for me, not my eight-year-old. And I certainly have my limits when it comes to receiving outrage about how I scramble eggs, set bedtimes, or wrap a rubber band around a hunk of hair. In many ways, I am a wiser and more empathic person\u2014finding my life by losing it\u2014 for having children. In other ways, I am the same person I was as a child: flawed, selfish, and prone to throw things when I don\u2019t get my way.<\/p>\n
I picked up the paper plate that lay upside down on the counter and placed some apple slices on it. I dipped them in peanut butter and crunched.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs my smoothie ready yet?\u201d my son asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot yet,\u201d I said, and pulled him into my arms. I had a few more slices to eat. It had been a long morning, dammit, and I was hungry.<\/p>\n
Tania Runyan<\/strong>, a recent NEA fellow, is the author of the collections Second Sky<\/em> (forthcoming), A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight<\/em>, and Delicous Air<\/em>, which won Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature. Her book How to Read a Poem: A Field Guide<\/em> will be released by T.S. Poetry Press in 2014.<\/p>\nArt Used:<\/em> It is going to be okay by Chidi Okoye Red and black pen on paper<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guest Post by Tania Runyan \u201cYou\u2019re not a good mom!\u201d My ten-year-old daughter shouted as she stomped up to her room. \u201cGood moms don\u2019t throw paper plates at their children!\u201d Of course, this declamation can be proven false. A good mother would construct a Chinese kite out of a paper plate, toss it toward her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[363],"tags":[547,329,180,548,3578],"class_list":["post-4613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-contributor","tag-maturity","tag-motherhood","tag-mothers-and-daughters","tag-selfishness","tag-tania-runyan"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Guest Post by Tania Runyan<\/p>\n