How many frustrated mothers have said that?
Mom certainly wished it on both of us kids more than once, but today I've been thinking about my brother for some reason. He was a holy terror, the stereotypical rotten little brother, for a long time...for years I pretended not to be related to him. I was very happy that he was enough younger to be in a different school building most of the time. Boy, is Mom laughing now that he has three kids of his own, at least two of whom have heads as rock-hard as his. (The jury is out on the third, who is still very small.)
She wouldn't wish all the ER visits on him or his kids, though. He was on a first-name basis with every doc in the area when younger and is personally responsible for most of her gray hair, to hear her tell it. His grasp of the connection between cause and effect was shaky...he'd do things like get on a skateboard at the top of a hill without considering how he'd stop the stupid thing at the bottom of the hill (where the cross street with traffic was.)
I remember him nearly breaking an arm when the vine he was swinging on broke. (Not making that up.) Mangling a toe in bike spokes. Cutting a knee open when he fell into an ornamental and rocky backyard water feature (God only knows what he was doing at the time.) Seriously damaging one retina playing squash and ending up in the hospital for a week. Various football-related injuries. Most terrifyingly, crushing a vertebra in his neck diving into too-shallow water. He had to wear a halo cast for a long time after that (and still has the bolt scars in his head to show for it) but at least came out of that incident unparalyzed. I'm sure there are more injuries I am forgetting, too--the family joke is that his guardian angel puts in some serious overtime.
Both of his older kids have been to the ER a time or two for various childhood mishaps (as, in fairness, have two of mine) but hopefully they will have more sense growing up than their dad did! I will say for him that he never picked on smaller or weaker kids...if he took someone on, they were bigger. Sometimes much bigger. On one particularly memorable occasion when he was in second grade, the biggest boy in my sixth grade class. Who was, fortunately for him, a patient soul with a good sense of humor.
Despite all odds, he did manage to survive his childhood, and outgrew what I used to call his "toad phase" sometime in high school. As an adult he is intelligent, handsome, and loving, a hard worker in a high-profile profession, and a good father. Not a bad job, all told. Thinking about it that way, he could do a lot worse than have his kids turn out like him, and Mom might even have been paying him a compliment way back when.
Even if that's not quite how she meant it at the time.
Mom certainly wished it on both of us kids more than once, but today I've been thinking about my brother for some reason. He was a holy terror, the stereotypical rotten little brother, for a long time...for years I pretended not to be related to him. I was very happy that he was enough younger to be in a different school building most of the time. Boy, is Mom laughing now that he has three kids of his own, at least two of whom have heads as rock-hard as his. (The jury is out on the third, who is still very small.)
She wouldn't wish all the ER visits on him or his kids, though. He was on a first-name basis with every doc in the area when younger and is personally responsible for most of her gray hair, to hear her tell it. His grasp of the connection between cause and effect was shaky...he'd do things like get on a skateboard at the top of a hill without considering how he'd stop the stupid thing at the bottom of the hill (where the cross street with traffic was.)
I remember him nearly breaking an arm when the vine he was swinging on broke. (Not making that up.) Mangling a toe in bike spokes. Cutting a knee open when he fell into an ornamental and rocky backyard water feature (God only knows what he was doing at the time.) Seriously damaging one retina playing squash and ending up in the hospital for a week. Various football-related injuries. Most terrifyingly, crushing a vertebra in his neck diving into too-shallow water. He had to wear a halo cast for a long time after that (and still has the bolt scars in his head to show for it) but at least came out of that incident unparalyzed. I'm sure there are more injuries I am forgetting, too--the family joke is that his guardian angel puts in some serious overtime.
Both of his older kids have been to the ER a time or two for various childhood mishaps (as, in fairness, have two of mine) but hopefully they will have more sense growing up than their dad did! I will say for him that he never picked on smaller or weaker kids...if he took someone on, they were bigger. Sometimes much bigger. On one particularly memorable occasion when he was in second grade, the biggest boy in my sixth grade class. Who was, fortunately for him, a patient soul with a good sense of humor.
Despite all odds, he did manage to survive his childhood, and outgrew what I used to call his "toad phase" sometime in high school. As an adult he is intelligent, handsome, and loving, a hard worker in a high-profile profession, and a good father. Not a bad job, all told. Thinking about it that way, he could do a lot worse than have his kids turn out like him, and Mom might even have been paying him a compliment way back when.
Even if that's not quite how she meant it at the time.
I love this story. Encouragement for the mothers of kids like that...
ReplyDeleteI never employed the mother's curse. I went through things with my kids that were just too damn painful to wish on them when they grew up. I knew they didn't mean to be that way. I will admit though, that sometimes when I see my daughter struggling with her very normal but very active three-year-old, I smile a little. I think- now you know. I think what a good mother she is. I am grateful she lived to be that mother.
It has to be really hard to watch your kids take paths other than the ones you'd choose for them. I'm just starting to get into that with my eldest, and am wondering if my micromanaging, control-freak soul is up to the necessary task of stepping back. I'm going to have to find a way of making it happen regardless. Mom had her hands full with the two of us--my issues were different but just as bad in their way (anorexia.) She's glad we both lived to see parenthood ourselves, and it was mostly due to her efforts...I didn't realize how strong she was until I had kids myself and began to really understand what we'd put her and Dad through between us!
ReplyDelete