Give me your 5 cents...

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the Internet is mightier than both. This is the new truism in my life. I have been keeping this journal/rant fest/steam vent for a few months now, and I am glad y’all are reading it and enjoying it and perhaps, disagreeing with it, too. I have heard some good remarks and some bad remarks and I love it when people comment! One post has caused some discussion. Here it is:


I am sure every mother, whether she has twins, triplets or singletons has heard the admonition, don’t do this/that/the other you’ll spoil the baby, blah, blah, blah. Well, I was with my boys at a relative’s house, and when one the babies started to cry I rushed over and picked him up. He had become scared by one of the older children’s noisy toys. I got to hear –

“She’s going to have a lot of trouble with those boys of she keeps on spoiling them like that.”

My fake response: “Children are like tropical fruit. They only spoil if they are ignored. My babies are not going to be spoiled by my enjoying them and appreciating them and picking them up when they need me. Your little ADHA child was obviously ignored, Missus Bad Mother.”

I feel the need to explain that the entire purpose of this little story was only to be a vehicle in which to make the tropical fruit comment, which I thought rather clever. This story was made up. I did use a bit of reality, like many writers do. (I know my dear sister will not mind me using her in the blog, she’s cool with the occasional shout out.) The relative’s house is her house; the noisy toy was a mechanical Barbie horse, a comment, sort of like the spoiling comment, was made by someone who speaks another language, so I am sure I heard it wrong, but I needed a remark to respond to, so I made one up; and the ADHD child is merely a figment of my fertile and creative mind. (If the lady who had made the remark about my holding the babies too much really did have a child with ADHD, he would be the first 40 year old Emergency Room Doctor with ADHD I have ever met.) The Missus Bad Mother, therefore, is no one at all.

I have heard it said that no one has a right to call anyone a bad mother, that each mother does the best she can with her situation. I have heard it said that I have no right to call my sister a bad mother (which I did not do in the above story, not me, no way and never will). I have heard it said that mothers of twins, of all people, should know how hard mothering can be, and that no one has a right to be as critical as I am on this blog.

The point to this is, yes, I do have a right to my opinion, as do you. Yes, I do have a right to think children should not be ignored and the mother who does not pick up her screaming baby is not being the best she can be at that moment. I absolutely have a right to that opinion, just as you have a right to disagree.

Please give me your 5 cents: Do I have a right to express myself so bluntly? Do I have the right to express my opinion and to create stories to make a point? Do I have a right to call someone a bad mother, a bad friend, a bad dancer, bad driver or bad lover? One of the blogs I love love love to read for her wisdom and truth is www.chezmiscarriage.blogs.com. She had a posting the other day that caused a comment war with about 30 readers, to which she responded, in her usual pithy way. Here’s a quote:

What surprised me about Friday's disagreement is that if you read the comments, everyone is essentially saying the same thing. "Please don't tell me how to feel." That's the sum total of everyone's position, right there. And yet a tussle ensued. A squabble. A donnybrook. An imbroglio. But why?
In my opinion, these issues are so sensitive - and so rarely discussed - that other people's experiences can often feel like an indictment of our own. It's difficult not to get defensive when someone is articulating an unfamiliar emotional reality. When an infertile woman confides that it's difficult to hear women complain about their pregnancies, does her fertile friend feel as though her physical complaints are being trivialized? When a woman with primary infertility articulates a longing for just one child, does her friend with secondary infertility feel stung by the implication that she should be satisfied with what she has?

In my own, clumsy way I am trying to express what I think and feel, what I hope and fear and what goes on in my mind. I am saying out loud what not a lot of mothers allow themselves to think: I am not the best mother, I am not the best mother I can be at all times, I am not the best mother for twins. However, the powers that be knew that I can handle this and therefore, I am the only mother available (drat – no days off!) My boys and I will have to muddle along, figuring it all out together. God knows, (‘coz He’s always watching) that I lose my patience, I yell and scream, and that I don’t always pick them up as fast as I can. Of course, I feel horrible about every time they have cried and I delayed the delivery of mother comfort so I could do something for myself first. (Like pee, put on my clothes, drink some water, you know, something a baby just can’t understand you may need…) But, I am not Missus Bad Mother all the time, just when I feel guilty. The guilt that comes with motherhood! Everyone feels it, and perhaps residual guilt over things done or left undone is what causes someone’s prickly defensiveness. What do you think? Please read the comments and make one of your own. I need feedback.