Beech Tree News Network

I’ve often said of my oldest daughter, Natalie, that she is one of the best mothers I have ever known.  She does so well with her little girl, but even Natalie has her limits, so it was no surprise when she carried Sabria out to where I was working in the yard to see if I could take a shift.  “I can’t get any of my homework done.  She keeps climbing over my books into my lap.  I know I shouldn’t say this, and I really do love her, but Mom, she’s driving me crazy,” she said.  I could tell they had both been crying.

“Welcome to the wonderful world of mother-guilt,” I thought, but didn’t say.  As I took Sabria from Natalie’s arms, a flood of memories came back to me.  I too had gone back to school when my girls were young, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  Not because of the distraction, but because of the frustration.  I was pulled between wanting to be a good student and wanting to be a good mother, and there was no even ground.  I was constantly in the limbo land of playing with my kids or yelling at them, then apologizing for yelling at them, then feeling guilty for yelling at them.

I was a parent to young children in an era that was just beginning to blame parents for everything that was less than perfect with their children.  We were either too hard or too soft or not attentive enough or too pushy or put too much emphasis on sports or too little emphasis on the arts and-on-and-on-and-on.  It was maddening, and to make it that much worse, the mother seemed to be singled out as the parent with the most influence over the children, therefore the one who received the most blame when a child wasn’t quite up to par.

For the past few years, I’ve told my children that I couldn’t wait to become a grandmother, because I wanted to be the good guy.  I was tired of wearing the black hat.  Let me tell you, being a grandparent is one of the few things that is what it’s cracked up to be.  Today, when Natalie handed Sabria to me, I dried the tears from her little eyes, wiped her runny nose on my tee shirt then hooked up the garden hose to the sprinkler.  We spent the next thirty minutes getting soaked.  Sabria forgot that her mom had been frustrated with her, she was hanging out in Gan’s world for the moment.

I had been cleaning up the front yard, and she thought I needed some help, so she took the broom and swept some of the landscape pebbles from their place by the shrubs onto the front porch.  She poured my bottle of Gatorade onto the sidewalk, and took two tomatoes from their place on the picnic table and squashed them to smithereens then wiped her hands on the cat.  She decided that Molly the horse might like a tomato, so she handed one through the fence for her to try.  Turns out horses do like tomatoes.  Who knew?     

A couple of hours later, Natalie emerged from the house.  Sabria ran to her and said, “Up.”  Natalie picked her up and said, “Where’s Mama’s baby?”  Sabria covered her face with both hands.  They laugh then Natalie takes her back into the house.  Kids will forgive you if you let them.  The trick is forgiving yourself.  The real trick is not carrying the guilt around.  I’m just glad that I’ve lived long enough to get to wear the white hat.