So many of us had an angry, furious reaction to the article Sorry But My Children Bore Me To Death and rightly so, that woman is a jerk. Plain and simple.
But does that mean that we aren’t ever bored? My comic in response hinted that boredom is a state of mind, but then again there are plenty of games my children play that drive me to distraction. I have work to do! So isn’t it good that some mothers come forward and truthfully talk about how boring and menial mothers work is? And shouldn’t we give the author some slack for speaking plainly?
I’ve been thinking about it a bit and the problem with the author of My Children Bore Me to Death, is that she’s got no street cred. You know? I don’t believe that she’s in the motherhood trenches, I think she’s a part-time mom who at best phones it in. We all have those days, but I suspect it may be her way of life. Fine.
This internal discussion I was having reminded me of one of my favorite books The Big Rumpus by Ayun Halliday. Where she clearly, concisely and accurately describes the boredom of motherhood, so that you feel it, take comfort in it and (laughing along with her, man she’s a riot!) straighten your spine and slog on through. I think the difference is that Ayun has those street credentials, she can name the negatives of mothering, but you suspect that she wouldn’t give it up for anything…and that gives you solace because you wouldn’t give it up for anything too.
Quoting liberally from The Big Rumpus:
“I didn’t hear from any women about the atlatl. I figured that they had all gone offline to make macaroni and cheese. It’s good just to know that they’re out there, in Bumblefuck, Idaho. We might not see eye to eye on the best place to raise our children, but we are all in the same boat.
I used to think that this expression meant that we all shared a boat, that your paddles are made lighter by the presence of others. That’s not what it means. Even on a good day, my paddles feel like they’re filled with buckshot. I’m willing to bet that every other mother’s do too. Shortly after you give birth, most of the activities that defined your identity are suspended to let you mix apple juice, deal with somebody else’s snot and develop a lot of highfalutin ideas about television. You’re not being paranoid or melodramatic if you feel like you’re the only grown-up in your boat. The kids never leave the boat either, but what help are they with the paddles? Their arms are hardly bigger than celery stalks. Also, as delightfully surreal and repeatable as their beginning syntax might be, their conversation cannot sustain you through the tedious stretches. If it weren’t for those little kids waiting for you to harpoon a fish so they can tell you they don’t like fish, you’d go right over the gunwales. You can’t leave them to fend for themselves, even though they are the ones who got you into this mess. You’re stuck choking down soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in that leaky skiff. The inviting blast of an ocean liner taunts you as it glides by, its portholes twinkling like a string of white Christmas lights. Damn the passenger list of marrymakers in bias-cut gowns and pary hats. It’s always New Year’s Eve nineteen-thirty something on the ocean liner. Too bad you’re missing it. then in the middle of some dark night, when you’re up, dog tired, struggling to keep your sleeping children out of the bilge water, you notice another crappy little boat a few yards out. And another. And another. The ocean is fairly crawling with boats as crappy and little as yours. Each one holds a mother tethered to a baby, a sleeping toddler or a jacked-up three-year-old still gibbering from an ill-advised late-afternoon sugar fix. We’re all in the same boat, all right. It smells like mildewed life preservers. There are millions of these boats in the sea. We shout to each other across the waves. Nobody will get offended if you have to interrupt her midsentence to seize your daughter by the ankle before she dives after a birthday party favor she dropped overboard, possibly on purpose.”
—Ayun Halliday, The Big Rumpus
See what I mean? She can say its boring and I’ll say Hell yeah! totally! and then head off to putter around the harbor with my dearest ones. Go ahead, read the Big Rumpus to get the bad taste out of your mouth from that terrible article, I promise you won’t be bored!
Peace,
Heather
