Rachel Laing
Rachel Laingâ
As Mother’s Day approaches, we moms are given the opportunity to take stock of our blessings. We’ll wax ecstatic over the coffee and French toast brought to us in bed. We’ll swoon over the homemade cards and balsa-wood-and-pasta-shell picture frames displaying photos of our kids.
But after 10 years of motherhood, I’m seasoned enough to offer up this heretical truth about modern-day parenting: It’s a bit of a ripoff.
Don’t get me wrong; I adore my kids. Sometimes I even like them. But when I signed up for this mothering gig, I thought I was moving to the other side of the parenting equation of my own upbringing.
When I was a kid, adults weren’t expected to make us happy. They were badasses. We played in the streets till the street lights came on, we damned well ate what was put in front of us, and we did our homework on our own. If our
dioramas looked like hell, it was because we procrastinated, not because our parents “didn’t care.” Now, when my little procrastinator brings in a banged-up shoebox with sloppy pipe cleaner-and-cereal figurines and sets it next to the projects that obviously involved the use of power tools, who looks bad? Me.
When I was a kid, parents were obligated to attend one school open house and one recital per year. But somehow, our parenting obligations have been expanded to dozens of mandatory activities designed to convey to our children that they’re more talented, interesting, and pleasant to be around than they actually are.
Among the worst of these myriad celebrations of our children are an interminable talent show (HOURS of show but precious little talent) and the dreaded Halloween fair, where the poorly lit schoolyard teems with hundreds of sugar-addled kids apparently seeking dark corners from which to be kidnapped.
My husband and I used to complain bitterly that we couldn’t enjoy the screeching delight of children like all the normal, square parents. So imagine my surprise when I learned that all those coffee cups in parents’ hands at school events and afternoon Little League games are filled with adult libations.
We brought a travel mug of wine to the very next event. It didn’t make the PTA pizza taste better or the kids’ screaming any less annoying. We didn’t even catch a slight buzz.
But as I looked around at the other parents with their coffee cups, I felt like we were part of a secret society telling the world: You’ve succeeded in draining the badassery from parenthood. We’re stealing just a few sips back.
