For All You Bad Mothers Out There

Bad Mother.

I see a review of a book with this title and of course I have to read it.

I mean, had Charlie been born in a previous generation still under the influence of the likes of Bruno Bettelheim I would have been a "bad mother" and not for anything I had done, but because of his being autistic. The 2002 film Refrigerator Mothers---about mothers who were blamed for "freezing out" their children and making them withdrawn, mute, autistic---is one of my favorite documentaries on autism. Though I've been ultra fortunate to be raising Charlie in a more understanding age, the voices of each of the mothers in the films resonate deeply in me. (And I can so see Charlie in all of their children, from the young man in the barber shop calling for "hash browns"---I guess Charlie would be wanting a burger or maybe "yellow rice"---to another who's tending to plants in the front yard with copious amounts of water from a watering can.)

Bad Mother isn't by the mother of a child on the spectrum and it would take someone with a lot more than "warrior mom" guts to use such a title, I'm thinking. And, from reading the New Yorks Time Book Review, the content is pretty different from what a "might-have-been-labeled-bad-mother-by-Bettelheim" like me and many of my friends live. Ayelet Waldman is a mother of a four who apparently gained some notoriety for a 2005 essay in the New York Times in which she wrote about loving her husband more than her four children. More specifically, Waldman wrote that

I often engage in the parental pastime known as God Forbid. What if, God forbid, someone were to snatch one of my children? God forbid. I imagine what it would feel like to lose one or even all of them. I imagine myself consumed, destroyed by the pain. And yet, in these imaginings, there is always a future beyond the child's death. Because if I were to lose one of my children, God forbid, even if I lost all my children, God forbid, I would still have him, my husband.

But my imagination simply fails me when I try to picture a future beyond my husband's death. Of course I would have to live. I have four children, a mortgage, work to do. But I can imagine no joy without my husband.

This is messy terrain, to talk about loving someone "more" than someone else and, while respecting Waldman's honesty and sincerity, I don't feel it's necessary to make sure distinctions. I love Jim and I love Charlie and I don't care to imagine life without my guys, my two guys. Not. At. All.

But life with Charlie has meant that Jim and I have had, from a fairly early time in Charlie's life, started talking about what it will mean for Charlie to live without one of us, without both of us. It's a given that Charlie is going to need care and support for his entire life and, while it's certainly better with both Jim and me---we need each other---Charlie needs to be taken care of. And part of our love and regard for each other is that we know that the other person will take care of Charlie, no matter what happens. This Tight Team o' Three takes care of its own.

For all of her honesty, Waldman's take on "bad mothering" isn't going to win her brownie points with mothers of children on the spectrum. One essay, "Rocketship," is about her decision to terminate a pregnancy "when a genetic counselor informed [her and her husband] there was a small — but bigger than usual — chance that their son would be seriously developmentally and physically challenged." Apparently her husband initially objected to this decision:

Waldman is never more moving than when she describes reading aloud, on Yom Kippur, before her entire congregation, a letter of atonement to the little boy or girl who would have been her third child. “I atoned before my husband, and my baby,” Waldman writes. “I begged Rocketship’s forgiveness for being so inadequate a mother that I could not accept an imperfect child.” She wants no consolation from the abortion-rights crowd (“Rocketship was my baby. And I killed him”), and she’s clearly unafraid of what the anti-abortion propaganda machine will do with what she has written.

According to the New York Times review, Waldman takes a "brave risk" in writing about "Rocketship." I would say she certainly is taking a risk, but I beg to differ about it as a "brave" one. Having a child who you know is going to be different and "imperfect"---excuse me? different means "imperfect"?---is an act of bravery. Parenting my son---walking down a city street with him crying and his anxiety at red-alert level, Jim holding Charlie's hand and me standing behind, people walking quickly away from us with their heads pointedly turned in the opposite direction---requires constant access to sources of courage, strength, and stamina I didn't know I had. Indeed, I've only discovered these in me in the heat of the moment.

I'll be honest. I really appreciate it when someone says I'm a good mother. It might be just a passing statement; it might be the only thing some bystander can think to say. It means a lot.

It means a great deal, to those of who can't yet afford to say we're "bad mothers." Because we're not and whatever my disagreements with Waldman, I don't think she is, either.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there---spending mine sweetly indulged by my guys, the two of 'em the bestest in the bunch.