Looking the storm of motherhood in the eye

SUE CLARK

Twenty-two years ago this winter, two catastrophic upheavals hit

Newport Heights. The first was an El Nino winter bringing rain unlike

any I’d experienced in our generally lightweight winters. The other,

more traumatic in magnitude, was the birth of my daughter.

Each time we have another El Nino, I recall torrents of rain

matched by torrents of my tears. I felt dumb and incompetent, and

that was on a good day, when I’d had a four-hour block of solid

sleep.

While the other new mothers I observed around the neighborhood

seemed to be coping rather gracefully with their new babies, I was a

basket case.

Taking time off from work had looked like a wonderful respite from

helping hundreds of high school students find the right college.

Having several months of maternity leave appeared to be a great

trade-off for writing 80 college letters of recommendation and

dealing with frantic college-bound kids and their parents. For

several months, all I would have to do was have a little baby to play

with. I had vague visions of taking the baby shopping and to the park

and generally toting her around like a little knapsack or a stuffed

animal. Nothing would change. She would be darling, and I would be

radiant.

Instead, I had one of the fussy babies. Nothing placated her. She

refused a pacifier (“I spit on your pacifier!”), and woke up so many

times at night that I became obsessed with sleep. She was darling,

but I was less than radiant.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this potential communicator

was to be fussy and frustrated until she began to talk. Her first

word was “meow” when she saw our cat, and after that, things got

pretty wordy around our house, but the baby’s mood improved.

Not knowing the future, however, and bouncing her around on my hip

in that desperate samba that all mothers learn to dance with little

fussbudgets, I’d sway around the house envying her father and his

daily escape to work. To add insult to injury, I actually missed

work. Yes, that same work I couldn’t wait to avoid! I would look out

my front window watching women go to work and think: “Wow. They get

to go to work and have an identity. They don’t have spit on their

shoulder and strained beets on their slacks.”

One day, I told my husband I had fantasized about leaving the baby

with him and running away to Seattle and becoming a waitress. He

looked justifiably worried.

“Just kidding,” I wept, as he looked at me with the

uncomprehending eyes of a natural-born father.

I felt like an equestrienne who could not get into the rhythm of

the horse’s canter. Instead I bounced tensely on the saddle. At the

park, I observed girls half my age dealing calmly and competently

with their babies and found myself begging them for advice. A

19-year-old once gave me (age 35) a tip on what to do for an ear

infection. I was shocked at how little I knew.

What helped me get through this period and stumble on to other

stages and other worries was the encouragement of the sisterhood of

mothers around me. My own mom, my husband’s mother and aunt on his

side of the family helped ground me. The Newport Heights baby-sitting

cooperative pulled me lovingly along until I began to enjoy

mothering, albeit nervously. I still have friends from that group who

gave me the compliment of trusting me with their kids and taking mine

in return.

Getting through troubled times makes us reach out to others who

are in the same boat. I went into high school counseling with a

special love for those kids who had been shy and awkward, as I had

been in school.

Similarly, I make it a point to support new moms I see walking

around the neighborhood. Yesterday, I took a jog down to the

Castaways and over to Newport Dunes. As I left my condo, I saw a new

mother taking her baby for a stroller ride. Her mother was with her,

and I stopped to look at the baby.

“Are you getting much sleep?” I asked.

“Yes,” the mother replied. “She slept through the night, and she’s

only a month old.”

“Oh, you’ve got a good sleeper, then,” I encouraged her.

Grandmother agreed.

“But I still can’t get this weight off,” she said.

“Oh, it’ll drop right off,” I predicted. “I gained 60 pounds; it

all came back off. You’ll see.”

Later, on the jogging path along the Castaways, I saw a young

mother looking very competent and striding briskly along, pushing a

stroller. She was telling her toddler about lizards that would come

out and sun on the path, and then run into the brush when people came

too close.

“They hide, huh Mommy,” the little girl said. “Yes they do,” she

agreed.

As I jogged by, I said, “You’re a good mother.”

She looked startled. “Why do you say that?”

“You explain things to your daughter, and she’ll develop

intellectual curiosity and a love of the world. You’re patient, too.”

She thanked me, looking surprised, and said, “I’m not always this

patient! Some days I wonder.”

“You’re doing a great job,” I repeated.

As I jogged away, her toddler asked her what I had said.

“She said nice things,” the mom replied. “She made Mommy feel

good.”

To all those moms, and other kind people who provide love and

wisdom for the newest parents among us, I wish you a happy

Thanksgiving.

And to new mothers, I wish you a solid, four-hour block of real

sleep.

* SUE CLARK is a Costa Mesa resident and a high school guidance

counselor at Creekside High School in Irvine. She can be reached at

tallteacher@comcast.net