Finding the 'Motherhood Sweet Spot'

Lately, I have been feeling very calm. Almost peaceful. My days are suddenly full of easy-to-complete to-do lists and challenging and interesting work. My 15-year-old gets to and from school with ease. I am in bed by 10 p.m. What is happening, I asked myself, and an answer arrived.

Recently, I was traveling home from LaGuardia Airport when I saw a young family encouraging their toddler daughter to use her stroller. She declined. The parents were disappointed but moved on. Later, I passed the mother and daughter again. They were laughing and playing together. The scene caught my eye because I don’t remember ever smiling like that when traveling with small children.

When the flight boarded, however, the mother’s mood had changed. Seated one row in front and across from me, she battled with her daughter, asking her to sit down and imploring her husband to help. “Put her seat belt on her,” she begged. The daughter screamed and cried. A video was turned on to calm her; it worked until a flight attendant told the mother to use headphones or turn it off. More crying ensued. Finally, and, I don’t know how, there was quiet, but left in its wake was an exhausted mother on the verge of tears.

And there it was. The reason for my new-found peace. With one son a freshman in high school and the other a freshman in college, I find myself today in the motherhood sweet spot. No playdates to arrange and no college applications to fret over. I am in a new parenting stage free of the two child-rearing phases I have found the hardest.

To be honest, one of these phases was harder for me than the other. On any day, I would take the college search with its travels, tears, and anxiety over the child-rearing of ages of 0-13 anytime. Why?

Let’s start with breastfeeding. First, there was the bullying I endured from the nurses just hours after giving birth to my first son. The nurses were in a panic that I would never get the hang of it. I could not leave until I was able to “breastfeed that baby,” as one nurse said over and over. Before I knew it, I had nurses hovering over me attaching rubber tubes to my chest to help my son suck and encourage milk flow. The only thing that flowed, however, were my tears.

Finally, in the peacefulness of home, my son and I got the hang of it, and, while I enjoyed and appreciated the ability to breastfeed, pumping milk at work was a nightmare. In the bathroom, on the stadium chair I bought for this purpose, I sat next to a toilet, praying I would pump at least four ounces of milk just to make it worth it.

During the toddler years, the holidays became a to-do list because I was determined to be the perfect Christmas mother. There were pictures to take, cards to order, Santa visits to book, train rides to board, and more tears to be shed. After the picture-taking debacle pictured with this post, I lowered my expectations and among other things, I ditched the Christmas card. Most people threw them out anyway.

Then there were the weekend playdates. These were usually with parents I didn’t know, and, after a week at my job, the last thing I wanted to do was share parenting secrets, play with bubbles, or make little families out of sticks. And, often, it was playdates where conflicting parenting styles would be at their most pronounced.

For some context, I was an 80s latchkey kid; among other things, I had no expectation that my mother would intervene on my behalf over playground fights or hurt feelings. This is the one rule of my parents that my husband and I adopted. Let children figure out how to resolve conflict without parental interference. (Yes, there are exceptions and age restrictions.)

It turns out that not all parents are fans of this approach, especially when their children knock on your door, and you refuse to listen to their latest complaint, telling them to figure it out on their own. This neglect on our part led to accusations against our children. Parents informed us that our children threw poop at their girls, refused to share toys, called other kids bad names, and just made their kids feel bad. (My oldest son was the alleged poop thrower. An accusation he denies to this day.)

I can add birthday parties, YMCA sports teams, pajama days, and, later, middle school friendships, dances, and first crushes to the list of things I really disliked about the 0 to 13 childhood years. I start to sweat just writing about it.

So, yes, where I am today is the sweet spot. Another difficult phase awaits, I know. But that’s okay. For now, I am going to float in the sweetness.