rivka | True confessions.

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True confessions.

One thing they don't tell you about, pre-motherhood, is the fury. You hear all about the fierceness of mother love and mother protectiveness and even mother anxiety, but no one ever says much about how angry it's possible to be at your own innocent and helpless child.

Alex is over her fever - it went away as inexplicably as it arrived. She woke up Thursday morning in a sunny mood, temperature normal. I, on the other hand, woke up Thursday morning at 4am to discover that something I'd eaten Wednesday night was violently disagreeing with me. I was worn out all day afterward, and all day I held on to the idea that I would come home, eat something unchallenging, and go to bed around eight.

I forgot to tell Alex. She was off her normal nap schedule because of being sick; fatally, on Thursday afternoon she napped until 5pm. At 7pm, her normal bedtime, she clearly wasn't ready to go to sleep. But at 7:30 she was rubbing her face a little, so we decided to give bedtime a try. We carried her upstairs and I settled down on the glider in her room to give her a bottle. For a few minutes, she looked like she was going to cuddle in and fall asleep. Then she developed a deep and absorbed interest in the star lights on her ceiling. Followed by a compelling need to explore every molecule of the necklace I have been wearing every minute of every day since her birth. And so on.

From 7:30 to 9 I struggled to get her to sleep. Every time she got drowsy and I put her down in the crib, we started again from square one. Somewhere in there I started hissing angrily, "Stop that! Go to sleep!" instead of my usual soft, reassuring, "hush, Alex, it's sleepytime." You can imagine how well that worked. A few times I stepped out into the hallway to catch my breath, and to hope that she would settle on her own. Each time, she started to scream in less than a minute. I'd go back in and find her standing at the foot of the crib. As soon as she'd see me, her face would crease into a delighted grin. Mine... would not.

She woke up at 2:15. And 2:45. And 4. And 5:15. This is a baby who, prior to her fever, was regularly sleeping 9-10 hours in a row, nearly every night. I tended to her with gritted teeth. (Michael had done all the baby duty Wednesday night, and I had promised him a night's rest.) At 5:15 I sent him up anyway, because I knew I was too angry to care for her properly. But she screamed enough that there was no sleep for me anyway, even with the baby monitor turned off, and eventually I went up to relieve him. She dozed fitfully in my arms, but would not allow herself to be put back down in bed.

I cried, when I brought her downstairs at 6:30 without having gotten any more sleep myself. I cried because I was tired, but mostly I cried because I wasn't being the mother I wanted to be. It's not Alex's fault that she couldn't sleep last night - her schedule was thrown off by her illness, and her sleep habits were disrupted by the fact that we went back to picking her up and holding her at night while she was sick, instead of calming her at cribside. It's not her fault. She wasn't trying to piss me off. But nevertheless, I was helplessly, horribly furious at my little girl, and I did not hide it successfully. I didn't hurt her or, I think, scare her, but I was not gentle or patient. I was grim.

But now it's all better. I napped with her from 9 to 10, and we woke up because our friends Emily and Zoe were knocking on the door to accompany us to story hour. With Emily - and our new friend Suzanne, who we met at story hour a few weeks ago, and whose son is three days older than Alex - I am comfortable confessing to the horribleness of my late-night thoughts. They understood and sympathized, and we all laughed about how awful it can be, and how great. We spent three hours together going to story hour, letting the kids play at the library, and then relaxing over lunch, and at the end I felt like I would be able to keep going. I felt... understood. Normal. Not alone.

I deliberately kept Alex awake until her normal afternoon nap time, with the result that she slept for two hours and then was able to stay awake until her normal bedtime. She did enough independent playing in the afternoon that I was able to read the entire New Yorker. And, just now, I took her up to bed and she was painlessly asleep within fifteen minutes. Now I'll have some dinner and a glass of wine, and then crawl into a hot bathtub with a book. Even if she wakes often tonight, at least I won't be starting from a place of rage. I'll try, again, to be the mother she deserves.

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I once screamed "Bitch" at Linnea. Quietly in a whisper, but I still did it. Then I went and woke Rob and told him it was his turn, because no way in hell was I fit to have charge of her. I don't generally swear at all. I was terrified I might hit her.

The rage is terrifying. There doesn't seem to be a way to make it go away, either.

I hope the relaxation this evening helps.

Parenting, and going through experiences like this, was what I needed to develop a good relationship with my own mother. For decades, I resented her, had a love-hate relationship with her, couldn't forgive her for incidents of shouting and sarcasm and inconstancy and spanking.

Then I raised my children and realized that, my God, those things my Mom had done, that I hated her for? They'd happened when she had five children under the age of ten; they'd happened when she'd been almost constantly pregnant for ten years (five living children + two miscarriages).

Actually, they'd happened when she'd been constantly pregnant AND raising babies and toddlers and hyperactive kids AND working fulltime evenings as a nurse AND with her husband out of town on business trips every other week. It's a wonder she wasn't psychotic from sleep-deprivation.

After I had that epiphany, so many things changed!

Oh yes. I have been there, I have done that, I have been alone in the house with a sleepless baby and my husband away on a business trip and screamed "I cannot fucking DO THIS!!!" at the top of my lungs at 3 in the morning.

And we all survived. And we all still love each other.

Yeah, nobody warns you about that part, do they?

Thank you for writing about this. It makes me feel more hopeful about my own potential as a parent.

Every woman who's a mother that I'm close to has gone through it. The teeth-gritting, fist-clenching, "keep the kid away from me!!" moments happen. If they didn't, I would be looking for either a halo over the kid or over the mother, because it just isn't human to not have the moments of frustration and rage that take you teetering to the edge.

Some parents can't pull back in time. Most do. You did, and will continue to.

Being sick will do that. When this cold started, I had some very exasperated, angry sessions with Henry. Usually, I focus my anger at my husband, who isn't in the room, but this time it was just too big and Henry was just screaming too long.

A friend of mine commented once when his first daughter was about two months old that child abuse of the slow torture type became even more incomprehensible, but that he now understood how a parent could get to a point where they would shake a baby or hit a baby.

I've been there. It's not pretty, but it's good to know that you can hold it together and make it through.

You're right - that is one they tend to forget to warn you about. I remember nights of "Go to sleep, dammit!" myself. The children don't seem to be scarred, but I might be... It is quite distressing to have a reaction like that. *sigh* Thankfully, the instances were relatively few, and faded with time. Hope you aren't being too hard on yourself, and that you get a good night's sleep!

According to my mom, being a super parent doesn't mean that you never want to hit your child. It means that you sometimes want to hit your child, but don't.

As someone who has been a child but not a parent, I'm sorry that there are moments like these. It should be such a dirty secret either, because Alex deserves a mom who trusts that she is not "horrible".

There are times when I almost...ALMOST...understand child abuse.

The ones we love are the ones who are most able to hurt us and to arouse anger. It doesn't matter that it's not rational, but there it is.

The guilt we put ourselves through! Once when my second child was about 2 months old, I experienced the same type of frustration you just described with Alex and I tossed him onto our couch out of sheer frustration and exhaustion. The minute I did it, I was horrified. Of course, he was still screaming fiercely, but after I finally got him to sleep, I sat in our rocking chair and held him for a long time. It was more to make me feel better than anything else.

(I'd like to tell you that these types of moments will disappear over time, but they don't. Believe me when I say, when they are teen agers, you will be as equally frustrated and furious as were last night.)

This is actually the thing that scared me the most about

galagan leaving town for the month. There would be no safety net. I wouldn't be able to stomp into the bedroom and say, "I'm sorry, I can't handle this; it needs to be your turn now." I feel lucky that I haven't had too many nights on my own where this has been a problem.

I have felt this anger so many many times. It's *so* awful at 3 a.m., when you've had maybe one single hour of sleep, and know that things aren't looking good for you getting much more sleep than that in the hours ahead. I have dumped my screaming child into her crib, walked away and shut the door, (and then gone and said the above to

galagan) because I knew that I was angry enough that I couldn't offer anything better than that. Because the alternatives are worse. It's not her fault I'm angry - she's doing the best she can.

Well... this gives me hope. I've done the same thing from time to time with my cats, and I've wondered if I have so little patience if I could ever be a parent.

It's just exhaustion for me... when my emotions are frazzled and I can't take any more frustration, and something goes wrong, and I can't walk away, it's too much, and I'm ready to go berserk.

And yeah, I don't, but I still feel like the world's biggest ogre for yelling or shoving away a cat who just wants me to give some pets and scritches.

OMG, yes, the time I screamed at him at 3 am 'cause he Wouldn't Sleep and Wouldn't Stop Nursing, trapped together in our hotel room with no daddy....

Worst parenting moment to date. I expect many more, sigh.

have you read anne lamott? i think she talks about just this. i think. must find the book and check again.

One time, and one time only, I became so angry at my little one's crying that I apanked him -- I HIT HIM to get him to stop crying! It didn't work, of course, and I will never never never live down the shame, but it has given me such empathy for parents who have reached the ends of their ropes. I am, in general, mellow in the extreme, and he is and was an amazingly sweet and gentle soul, and here I was, completely irrationally furious at this little helpless creature. I still am stunned at the personality change that the combination of sleeplessness, frustration, and the inability to communicate with a little wailing bundle can create.

There are times that if we were the mothers our children really deserve, the human species would not survive another generation.

Totally off the subject - I LOVE that light. Details?

I'm trying to remember who I read who took a new mother aside at, I think, the baby shower, and told her, "There will be times when you want to throw the baby out the window. As long as you don't actually do it, this is normal." Non-parents who heard this thought he/she was joking...

Innocent and helpless they are, yes; also loud and demanding! The fury comes with the territory.

Definitely been there. I think you did fine. There were times when I just wanted to scream at her "Will you JUST go to SLEEP already!!!"

Wow. You'd think that since Colin is my third child, I would understand that moments like these happen and are normal. I even have a much better support network this time than I did with his sisters and those sorts of moments still happen when I get too low on my own resources and am still expected to be and do for everyone else including the baby, especially the baby.

These moments change as the children age, but don't ever completely stop. They'll do something or say something that zeros in like a rapier to hit a hot button you might not even realize you had. You'll do or say or just think something that will haunt you for days, weeks, or longer.

You do the best you can with what you have.
It's what you do when you don't have enough that really matters.
You did just fine.

I've been a child but not a parent. I have, however, cared for some very young children on a temporary basis, and I must say, I don't know how you all do it.

In one case I had the honor of being the first one mommy and daddy left their precious angel with. It was only a few hours (they ultimately couldn't stand not being there to watch her every dear little breath), but it was grueling. I'm not being sarcastic above; she really was precious, and a complete angel as long as I held her (well, she fussed a bit). The instant I set her down she began the demonic spine-rending shrieking all parents know all too well.

So I pretty much held her the whole time. I also learned the value of hostile baby-rocking songs; they let you vent without having any negative impact on the baby, who hears only the soft, gentle tune. And if the song is good enough, baby doesn't pick up on the hostility either. This particular one seemed to really like it when I held her and slowly waltzed around, singing

Oh, you will have a gown of red...
Oh, you will have a gown of red...
You will have a gown of red,
And dance for the coins that they throw at your head,
When we sell you to the Gypsies, oh.

That last line being the refrain. I can't remember any more; I was making it up as I went along.

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