You don't "totally get" where I'm coming from

The other day I read a facebook post about "not wishing away" the stages of our children's lives. I'm not a close friend of the woman who said she's enjoyed her babies, toddlers, teens, and adult children. The name of another mom who commented, "I loved it all and now laugh about what used to make me mad" (punctuated by cute pink hearts) is just that. A stranger's name.

I'm happy for them. The world needs mothers who cherish their families. And I try to do the same.

But I don't link motherhood with cute pink hearts.

At the risk of appearing heartless on Facebook (that mecca of mommy mushiness), I commented that parenthood hasn't been a joyful journey for me. My husband and I love the five children who joined our family. We wanted them all and treasure the good times. But dealing with some of their developmental struggles and my own depression continues to create challenges every step of the way.

While acknowledging that nobody likes everything about motherhood, my acquaintance responded that she "totally gets it", then wrapped up her comment with a positive-mental-attitude quote.

Dear mothers who work tirelessly to raise good children and have every right to rejoice in your lives, I admire you. But you don't understand my experience any more than I understand the trials that shape your reality. I'll never presume that I do.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't chronically depressed. I didn't begin to address the cause until after all our children were born. Much as I regret lost opportunities to laugh, connect, and nurture, depression often feels like swimming through jello and I sometimes don't have the energy to do much more than cook dinner and bite my tongue. Too often I don't even do that.

Even though my husband and I wanted children, the joy I hoped to feel was crushed by the weight of responsibility when our first son squirmed on my naked chest. I had to help him latch onto a breast, I had to facilitate bonding within his first few minutes of life while I winced with pain and the doctor stitched up extensive tearing.  The Bradley natural childbirth "bible" had promised that many new mothers could walk out of their delivery rooms. But I fainted from blood loss when my husband tried to help me to the bathroom that night. A nurse inserted a catheter into my nether regions and there I was. Weak. Swollen. Bleeding profusely. And, worst of all, panicked about caring for a helpless child.

Night after night, I rocked and cried and nursed him in the darkness of a tiny room that was already crowded with canned wheat, beans, and powdered milk. The borrowed cradle wouldn't fit by our bed and my husband needed sleep so that he could work and go to school. With no stroller, car, or telephone, I rarely communicated with anyone else or went anywhere. Instead, I tried to rest, do basic chores, and nurse the baby. Then nurse him again and again. I felt inadequate around my mother-in-law who cooed and cuddled him with complete adoration shining in her eyes. The only words I remember my mother saying were, "You need to talk to that baby more."

I couldn't relate to magazine  photos of stylish mothers beaming at their plump little cherubs. Maybe that's why articles about postpartum depression didn't register with my sleep-deprived brain. My doctor never asked me about symptoms. It was 1987.

I felt betrayed by my body that took so long to heal and I couldn't forget the shame of screaming as the doctor's forceps dragged my baby into the world. I loved our son, but in a pattern that spilled into my other babies' lives, that emotion was clouded by extreme anxiety over meeting constant, pressing needs. Months passed before I could laugh.

Yet women at church and the grocery store told me to enjoy him while he was small.

Babies grow up so fast.

For twenty-eight years, I've struggled with physical exhaustion while potty-training unwilling toddlers. Dealing with food issues related to ADHD that eventually affected their growth. Screaming tantrums that escalated into one child's preteen years whenever my husband and I required him to do chores. Every. Time. No matter how much we tried to stay calm. No matter how consistently we refused to cave in.

Several years, disappointments, and thousands of dollars later, we found professional help. By this time the two sons who were having the most challenges were approaching adolescence. One has Asperger's syndrome and the other ADHD. Although we reeled with the lifelong implications, we tried to educate ourselves and their teachers, and to apply solutions. .

It wasn't that simple.

The boys balked at implementing school strategies or being singled out for help with study and social skills. Professional advice sometimes fell on deaf ears. Fed by the fires of contention that energized their spirits and often drew me in, I lived a mercurial existence of frustration and despair. Anger over missed assignments, remediation, and high school teachers who thought coaching was more important than honoring our repeated requests for information about failing grades until it was too late. Sadness over our sons' social isolation when moms posted Facebook photos of their teens dressed up for girls' choice dances. Frustration at student athletes and other peers who didn't think about being inclusive, then judged one son for not serving a L.D.S. mission at age 19. Or busy church leaders who listened absently to my husband's concerns, then tried to compensate by saying, "I love that kid. He's really O.K."

I didn't cry at their high school graduations. Exhausted with relief yet smiling, I watched my husband take photos. One son allowed me to offer a quick hug. The other didn't. Then we pressed forward to appropriately help them navigate more complex stages of their lives, while trying to be there for three other children with talents, dreams, and their often-unmet needs.

Long ago, I accepted the fact that these sons wouldn't achieve the usual milestones at the same rate as their peers. In most ways, their paths have been completely different the typical small-town teen.

So has mine.

I'm often stumbled, then stayed huddled on bruised hands and knees, so consumed by my own pain that I failed to offer a hand to a struggling child.  I've never been a fount of wisdom, patience, or unconditional love. That would be easier to bear if I could look back and see personal progress.

Right now I can't.

So motherhood weighs heavily as I try to muster the willpower to dispel depression.  Again.

Circumstances will never be perfect, but by the grace of God, we are starting to heal and connect on some levels. Sometimes I glimpse a time when all of our children gain independence. I hang onto that and feel intensely thankful when they express forgiveness for my past and present mistakes.

I've shed grateful tears when someone reached out and helped our vulnerable sons. When young women leaders modeled happy motherhood for my daughter, lending strength to their convictions that raising families is a divine gift.

I was there once, a young girl who took it all in. But children aren't adorable playthings to dress up and display in baptism white, prom tuxes, or wedding gowns. I'm only beginning to understand the magnitude of patience and love a young adult child still requires, even when he shoves me aside in a quest to deny hard realities of developmental challenges. To be like everyone else.

I gaze at the heights that most children reach at 16, 18, or 25. We've got so far to climb. He's too big to carry or force up the steep slope. The only thing left is to persuade, to encourage. To keep seeking help.

My husband and I never anticipated this kind of journey. Most of the time we're bone-tired. But we won't give up; every stage requires readjusted expectations, then we trudge on.

People don't need to understand our reality. Just realize that it's not the same as yours. And tidy slogans about positive thinking sometimes feel like salt on blistered feet.

In the meantime, I'll try harder to find delight in unexpected moments of love and humor. Or look into the tired eyes of other mothers at church and focus on what they might not express in words. I'll tell them they're doing just fine. Even if they don't love the new-baby or teenage years of their children. Even if they're barely hanging on until the next stage finally arrives.

Sometimes that's all a mother can do. As a believer in Christ's atoning grace, I pray it's enough.

The Best of Times

As pre-teens, my sister and I played a board game called "Mystery Date." I don't remember the rules, but the objective was to prepare for a date by acquiring three matching color-coded cards to assemble an outfit for a specific kind of date. The clothing had to match the outfit of the boy who was waiting at the plastic "mystery" door. My older sister and I inherited the game, along with a Midge doll, from an older cousin. With her plastic case full of threadbare finery and multiple pairs of plastic stilettos, Midge was the only fashion doll we ever owned. And the frivolous "Mystery Date" wasn't the kind of game my parents would have purchased for their young daughters. Yet I loved the glamorous ball gown and accessories for the formal dance date. I often daydreamed about the beautiful dress I would wear to my future high school prom and the young man who would proudly escort me to the dance floor.

Fast forward to April 1981. Now seventeen, I took a deep breath and waited for the last student to amble from the language arts classroom. Through the open windows of the crusty small-town high school, adolescent laughter and conversation laced the soft afternoon air like wispy seeds from the cottonwood trees. I yearned to hurry down the hill and turn corners in a merciful split second, to shut my bedroom door on the news a friend had shared that morning. During my absence on a Spanish club trip the week before, my favorite teacher had told at least one class that I'd rejected her son's  invitation to the upcoming prom. 

In fifth grade, I'd envied him because his mom reportedly paid him $5.00 every time he read a book. In eighth grade, I nurtured a brief crush on him before I made the conscious decision to avoid teenage romance. (Not that any boys noticed.) Since we started high school, he hadn't talked to me about anything except yearbook photos or assignments for the school newspaper. 

More hurt than angry, I walked to Mrs. R.*'s desk and struggled to maintain eye contact as I set the story straight. Few students dared ignite her temper; one of the few professional women who'd grown up in our southern Utah town, she governed her students with a firm hand and lightning-sharp flashes of humor. I had blossomed from her encouragement of my attempts at writing and had willingly spent countless hours working as assistant newspaper editor. How she could believe I had turned down her son because he wasn't a practicing Mormon? I was religious, but not a prude.

After a long pause, she said, "I owe you an apology. When Darren* was trying to decide who to ask to the dance, I suggested you. Because--forgive me--I thought you might be one who'd be left out."

This painful truth didn't sink in as I smiled, said things were O.K., and walked a wind-blown mile to my home on the north end of town. It didn't penetrate my fog of anxiety as I slipped into ratty jeans and a t-shirt to paint a mural of an elegant garden for the prom. The large butcher-paper masterpiece taped to my bedroom wall would be hung as a backdrop for photographs of smiling couples during the dance. During the early stages of painting, the head cheerleader and her best friend came to see how much progress I'd made. Smiling and laughing, they returned to their decorating duties at the school, where they told other classmates the mural looked terrible. Even though their cattiness left me fuming, I doggedly painted a graceful tree loaded with blossoms that my untrained hand tried to accent with illusions of light.

A formal dress hung in my closet, but it wasn't the peach-colored Gunne Sax confection that had caught my eye during a shopping trip in St. George. Instead, I had conceded to my mom's sweet-voiced preference for an ivory gown with a three-tiered skirt that washed out my pale complexion. But the dress didn't make any difference. My left hand ached from hours of wielding a paintbrush. My hair, face, and clothes were smeared with a garish display of colors. As junior class president, I felt like a dependable work-horse who would attend the dance just long enough to endure the traditional class promenade and coronation of the prom royalty. Then I planned to drive home, fall into bed, and sleep.

Two nights before the big event, my mom called me downstairs to answer the phone. It was a Rob*, a young man who had recently returned from a L.D.S. mission. (In our town, returned missionaries sometimes dated high school girls.) In a hesitant voice, he asked if I would go with him to the dance. Surprised, yet ecstatic, I said yes.

The evening of the prom washed the high desert hills with layers of lavender sunset. After removing the cooled electric rollers from my naturally straight hair, I tried to brush layers of curls into Farrah Fawcett perfection. At last I was primped, painted, and hair-sprayed for my mystery date. When I walked downstairs in the ivory dress, my oldest sister's fiancee gaped in admiration and exclaimed, "Here comes the bride!" 

I blushed in discomfort and wobbled as fast as my high heels allowed to the living room to wait.

Wearing a dark brown suit leftover from his missionary days, Rob finally knocked on the front door. He was shorter than I expected and wouldn't look me in the eye as I invited him inside. Finally, he shifted his feet and held out a large corsage of deep red roses.

Beaming with pride, my mom volunteered to pin the corsage on the crocheted lace ruffle that accented the neckline of my dress. But my hands shook as I tried to secure a boutonniere on the lapel of Rob's suit coat. This young man was a complete stranger whose shyness aroused my sympathy when he spoke in our church meeting months before.  He didn't want to be here. What would we say to each other for the next three hours?

Once we arrived at the school multipurpose room, the throbbing beat of the live band solved most of the dilemma. Neither of us knew how to dance. But in that crepe paper palace of the early 1980s, we merely blended into the adolescent herd, exchanging forced smiles as we rocked from one foot to another or endured slow-song shuffles under a suspended disco ball.  Between songs, our attempts to prop up conversation dissolved into the surrounding hum of scattered phrases and a haze of musk aftershave mingled Jean Nate cologne. The last vestiges of my pre-date excitement vanished like careful bites of anemic sheet cake slathered with frosting that tasted too much like shortening. 

Rob never asked the photographers to take our picture in front of my painted garden. My mom snapped a Polaroid photo of my dad dancing with me after the promenade, while a duo of classmates sang a strained imitation of the Styx hit single, "The Best of Times." Then the head cheerleader was crowned prom queen, with her best friend as one of the attendants. All of the royalty smiled for Darren's yearbook camera in front of my blossoming tree.

Rob and I didn't say much during the drive home. But he shook my hand on the front porch and said, "Hey, we'll have to do this again some time."

He never called and it's just as well. On Monday, my friend admitted that Rob had asked me to dance as a kind of service project. His plan to double-date had fallen through. Eventually my corsage was shoved to the back of our fridge where it wilted behind gallons of milk and a five-pound block of Brooklawn cheese.

*Names have been changed.