Jeff Bridges As Destroying Mother Goddess
Apr. 10th, 2007 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraSturm und drang on the Robin T front this morning. A missing homework assignment! The mutual accusations – "You didn't do it!" "Yes, I did! You don't trust me! I hate you!" – quickly escalate to slamming doors and MIA status.
Ben performs the dragnet in the red Veedub; the suspect is apprehended two blocks away, kneeling in front of a neighbor's porch. A fat pussycat is licking its paws in the sun, ignoring Robin's entreaties – "Here pussycat, nice pussycat, let me pet you!"
Maybe if I laminated a little sign and gave it to Robin to wear around his neck in such exigencies – "I May Be Hellspawn But I Still Like Cute, Furry Animals" – he'd score more often.
Of course now the morning is effectively shot for anything but the most banal activities – accounting, complaining emails to vendors:
Dear Marcelo
Hope you're enjoying the World Cup of Cricket on the sunny isle of Antigua!
Now. About that three cases of Susie's Original which you say I received but neither I nor FedEx have any record of ever leaving Susie's Central in not-so-sunny Pembrokes Pine…
I suppose I'm not the world's worst mother. But I'm not a very good mother either. Let's face it: I'm the Big Lebowski of mothers.
"I'll cut myself!" Robin screamed this morning. There is apparently some Goth mutation called Emo – after that bad Peewee Herman wannabe? who knows – that involves self-mutilation and a really unattractive hairstyle with side bangs. The Emo kids are the consummate outsiders at Robin's new school.
"I'll cut myself!" Robin screams again.
"You know where the knives are!" I reply cheerfully.
"I will never forget this," Annie said to me last week on the Great Cavy Caper. "Max was just a few weeks old and I came to visit you – you were changing a diaper and breastfeeding. And I ooohed and I ahhed. And you just looked at me and said, 'It's a lot of work. What's the pay-off?'"
I don't remember saying this but it sounds like something I would have said.
I mean, I love my children, of course, and often fantasize about them coming into harm's way so I can fling myself in front of that speeding car, that exploding power plant, that Lugar-clutching madman, interpose my own body between death and their infinitely sweeter selves.
But I don't feel maternal in the same way that other women seem to feel maternal. This mother thing has always seemed like a very odd relationship to have with another human being – they grow in your body! you boss them around for 21 years! they leave and bitch about coming back for Thanksgiving!
It's just… odd. Often I get quite tired of it.
Ben performs the dragnet in the red Veedub; the suspect is apprehended two blocks away, kneeling in front of a neighbor's porch. A fat pussycat is licking its paws in the sun, ignoring Robin's entreaties – "Here pussycat, nice pussycat, let me pet you!"
Maybe if I laminated a little sign and gave it to Robin to wear around his neck in such exigencies – "I May Be Hellspawn But I Still Like Cute, Furry Animals" – he'd score more often.
Of course now the morning is effectively shot for anything but the most banal activities – accounting, complaining emails to vendors:
Hope you're enjoying the World Cup of Cricket on the sunny isle of Antigua!
Now. About that three cases of Susie's Original which you say I received but neither I nor FedEx have any record of ever leaving Susie's Central in not-so-sunny Pembrokes Pine…
I suppose I'm not the world's worst mother. But I'm not a very good mother either. Let's face it: I'm the Big Lebowski of mothers.
"I'll cut myself!" Robin screamed this morning. There is apparently some Goth mutation called Emo – after that bad Peewee Herman wannabe? who knows – that involves self-mutilation and a really unattractive hairstyle with side bangs. The Emo kids are the consummate outsiders at Robin's new school.
"I'll cut myself!" Robin screams again.
"You know where the knives are!" I reply cheerfully.
"I will never forget this," Annie said to me last week on the Great Cavy Caper. "Max was just a few weeks old and I came to visit you – you were changing a diaper and breastfeeding. And I ooohed and I ahhed. And you just looked at me and said, 'It's a lot of work. What's the pay-off?'"
I don't remember saying this but it sounds like something I would have said.
I mean, I love my children, of course, and often fantasize about them coming into harm's way so I can fling myself in front of that speeding car, that exploding power plant, that Lugar-clutching madman, interpose my own body between death and their infinitely sweeter selves.
But I don't feel maternal in the same way that other women seem to feel maternal. This mother thing has always seemed like a very odd relationship to have with another human being – they grow in your body! you boss them around for 21 years! they leave and bitch about coming back for Thanksgiving!
It's just… odd. Often I get quite tired of it.
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Date: 2007-04-10 06:10 pm (UTC)Just this morning, the dog got out of the house, and I spent twenty frustrating minutes chasing him up and down the street. And I thought to myself: "This is a real pain in the ass. I'll bet parenting isn't all that much different." And, then and there, I rethought my desire to have children.
But what can you say? It's hard-wired. Every time I see a man about my age picking up a four-year-old, it activates some long-dormant line of code in my DNA, and I feel a twinge.