CrankMama

Failure to Flourish: Don't Suffer Alone

During the holidays, many mothers silently suffer from an illness called "Failure to Flourish."  This condition has the ability to transform a lighthearted sexy girlfriend into a mean old bag of a wife and mommy. 

"I don't understand what has happened.  My wife used to be darling and adoring.  She used to wear makeup and heels and shower daily.  Now she doesn't even appreciate that I do the dishes THREE times a week!"  wailed one forlorn and confused husband of a woman suffering from FTF. 

"Many women feel secretly angry and despairing over their tiring and unglamorous lives.  They find themselves envying their relaxed empty-nester counterparts, having unexplained fits of rage when people talk about Paris, and losing the ability to act cheerful for more than 30 seconds," declared Dr. Rosie Rueful, principal researcher for the Angry Woman Institute. "By shedding light on Failure to Flourish, we hope women everywhere can get the help they need."

Signs that you or the woman you love may be suffering from Failure to Flourish:

• disinterest in her surroundings
• avoidance of eye contact
• irritability
• failure to reach developmental milestones like learning to balance meals, talking in a non-high baby voice, or matching socks
• infrequent showering and bathing
• unexplained anger at others who are cheerful and hoo hoo

Treatment options vary according to the seriousness of the condition, but can include:

• a day at the spa
• a date night with girlfriends who are not allowed to discuss anything domestic, especially their children
• a day alone in bed with a good book and a romantic comedy starring a hunky 20-something
• a meandering walk through the neighborhood alone, to take in the fresh air and non-talking beauty of nature, and, if after-dark, a peek into the disturbing lives of one's neighbors.
• heavy medication

If you find you may be suffering from this condition, please don't suffer alone.  Get help immediately by calling our Mommy Is Going To a Home Hot Line (1-888-Is-This-All-There-Is?), where helpful and decidedly uncheery volunteers are standing by to listen to your legion of real complaints...

Custody is an Ugly Word for Respite

When I became pregnant with the twins at the ripe old age of 33, I was gainfully employed, more or less psychologically sound, and relatively mature.  The fact that I'd only dated their father for 5 months was insufficient cause for me to consider not continuing with the pregnancy.  At the time I was madly in love and foresaw a rosy future for us and our soon-to-be-twins.

What happened next, anyone could have predicted from the less-than-sunny-sidelines of my life: the twins, the hormones, the fighting, the crying, the sleep deprivation, my feelings of betrayal and heartbreak when he seemed disinterested/bored/impatient with our babies. 

When the twins were 9 months old, I bought myself a small cheap house in the northern reaches of Washington State, commuted to my big money job over an hour away while my Mom watched the babies, and attempted to start over as a single mother.  Though the twin's father and I never married, he wanted to be in their lives, and we agreed that he'd see them every other weekend from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon. 

From the beginning, especially for the first two years of the twin's lives, I would be so utterly exhausted, I'd fall asleep at my desk at work, and slap myself awake every day driving home.  I'd look forward to his weekends with the twins to catch up on my sleep, clean the house, and sleep some more. 

Now that I'm remarried and have a 20 month old, the joint custody arrangement is still bittersweet.  I miss them sorely, I hope and pray that our cooperation helps ease their transition between homes,  and I and my husband try and give them a good, secure, happy loving home life, sharing birthdays and holidays with their Dad & his new wife.

But this every other weekend respite.  Is. So. Lovely.  And no, I don't recommend breaking up with your spouse in order to get a break.  Nor do I recommend getting very very ill in order to have a week in bed.  What I am saying is that everyone should have what I have, but without the drama & heartbreak & the missing of the children.

Every mama and daddy deserve time to recharge -- to sing loudly to bad country music, dance around the house, get a massage, have coffee while staring outside and not have to answer questions about Jesus, sleep in until (I don't know, I'm feeling CRAZY today) 8 or 9am.

I can't describe to you fully how sorry I am that my lovely daughters will have to live with my mistakes for the rest of their upbringing.

But I work with what I have and it's this: I use their time at their Dad's to recharge so that when they get back, I can be stronger, and more devoted, and more loving than I was when they left.

It's Not You, It's Me

Dear Motherhood,

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about us and I feel it's time to come clean about a few things.  Please don't think my reticence and distance lately has been about you.  It hasn't.  It's been about me. 

Please don't take it personally, Motherhood, the things you do are great, you try really hard... and you're SO thoughtful.  It's just that, well, I need more excitement.  Just a little more.  And I'm sure it's all my fault and I'm planning to see a therapist... Wait. Don't cry! Please!

I love your people, the small ones.. it's the long hours and the no sex and the chubby ass I could live without.  And the "Ma'am" and the grocery shopping and the laundry. 

Here's the thing.  You are my friend and will live in my heart always...

But I need to see other people. And I need to go dancing...

Love Always,
Rachael

I See Cranky People

As has already been established, contentment is far preferable to happiness in CrankMama Land.  In my view, happiness, like success, is often an illusory experience, based on denial, or insularity, or a determination to ignore all grim things.  It's like that peppy high school cheerleader raw-rawing as I froze my ass off playing the flute in marching band.   She just didn't get it.

That same sensation of "huh?" grips me each time I talk to a mom who seems to not only never experience maternal angst and frustration, but whose very existence is seemingly wholly fulfilled by motherhood and its attendant domestic tasks and endless opportunities for craftmaking projects.

When you feel that you're existing on the parenting edge of insanity, other's cheerful chipperness and apparent normality make you feel so horrid and totally incompetent you not only suspect, you know you're in hell.  You're just the dumbass in the band uniform while all the cute girls are dancing  and laughing on the sidelines in their sweet little cheerleader skirts.

It is only now, five years later, one new husband and one more singleton child into The Motherhood, that I find myself... content.  Not always, not predictably, but frequently content.  I'm not fulfilled solely by these girls and the endless demands of preschooler twin girls (the TALKING the TALKING), but when they tell me they love me "bigger than the world" and my youngest puts her arms around my neck and snuggles her soft chubby face against mine in the waning days of her babyhood, I can finally see what all the fuss is about.   Finally. 

But I haven't left the snarky, cranky fold of the imperfect.  I'll never be the put-together PTA president, the Halloween costume making stay-at-home-and-love-it-cutie mom, or the champion of all things mother. 

Like my lovely sister-in-law who was the only person on the Canadian Boat O' Happiness to pay real attention to the particular hell of chasing a new walker in a crouched position for two days around a small sharp-edged boat, I understand and feel great affinity for those who really get it --the many aspects of motherhood angst. 

At one point, my pretty SIL put her warm hand on my arm, looked into my eyes and said in her beautiful Spanish accent,  "Ahh, Rachael... I see you."

Sweet Beatrice

I'm a contributor at Sweet Beatrice today.  Take a look.

Every Mama Needs...

For Her Spirit:

A daily belly laugh

A gaggle of smart sassy girlfriends (or just 1)

A sweetie who tells her she's gorgeous when she hasn't showered in two days and smells like baby vomit

Somewhere to go to be alone and quiet, or to be rowdy, loud, and sexy

For Her Kids:

Loving safe caregivers for date night (or work)

Health insurance and a good pediatrician

For Her Mind:

Meaningful work

A good book

For Her Bodacious Bod:  

Pretty underwear that helps everything stay put

A vibrator

For Her Heart:

Great music

Art

Loving kindness

 

I Know Why The Caged Bird Drinks

One of the many elements firing my girlcrush on Susie Bright (writer, sexpert, mother) is that she gives us air holes in our little jars of conventionality --- that fabulous concept that keeps our bad little dogs chained but often ruins spontaneity.

Since I delayed childbearing and marriage until well into my 30s, I had much time to sow my wild oats and dance until 3 and spend too much money on travel and shoes and graduate school.  I had time to date and sleep with the wrong men, drink too much and too often, and spend afternoons on my sunny porch discussing gender politics with my galpals.  Even though I still have ways to rebel that are within the realm of reasonable and responsible, I still feel like a bee in a jar and miss that other life.

Now I'm going to share a poem I call Soul Cage... (read to the music of somewhere over the rainbow)

HA! Wouldn’t that be just awful??  Isn't there a Sting album by that name?  Poor Sting.  Ah... how fragile we are.  So true so true.

Other than watching porn and occasionally imbibing *before* I begin to prepare dinner (the horror), I'm not creatively gifted at finding other means to express this need to rebel.  As a mother of 3 and former nonprofit exec living in a small town, I'm hesitant to parade downtown in my S&M dress and pink boa...

But you never know.

WordPlay

1. SexPot = a humansized vat of sex
2. Mama = a hip sassy mom, not to ever be mistaken for mommy or mother
3. Ma'am = what they call you when they're cute and in their 20s and you're so obviously freakin' NOT
4. GalPal = the one who always says you're phat...not fat
5. Get Your Freak On = see #1
6. Cute = what they call you when you don't get called gorgeous hardly *ever* I mean what's WRONG with these people??
7. AloneTime = when mommy runs away upstairs with a bottle of wine and a video and a celeb mag and if anyone comes in the door they are ignored and sent back to Daddy immediately.
8. Toys = Lovely things that are always more fun than flowers
9. Hubcap = husbandly one
10. Moobs = Man Boobs.  Also funny clever site by a MAN.

Every Mama Needs...

To consume 2 cups of coffee before having to explain where the dog went when he died
To teach her kids to get themselves breakfast so that she can sleep past 7am
To institute "quiet play time" until the kids are in college to insure daily down time
To get laid properly, slowly, and lovingly without hearing "Mama! I'm out of WAAAAAATER!" yelled from the other room...

Every Mama Needs...

Pretty Shoes