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Bad Mothers
Jan. 29th, 2006 08:29 amFrom Arkansas this morning comes another one of those news items about a mother who killed her three children.
I always become obsessed with stories like these.
I'm an excellent mother myself, but maternal instincts are a control center that sits far outside my personality. When my kids were younger, I often found myself using the third person – "Mommy doesn't want you to do that!" – as if I wasn't their mother at all but some kind of unpaid baby-sitter generously donating my services until such moment as their real mother returned from her extended vacation to Alpha Centauri. None of the parenting magazines I read said anything about the use of the third person. It worried me. I loved my children, of course, and often fantasized about them coming into harm's way so I could fling myself in front of that speeding car, that exploding power plant, that Luger-clutching madman, interpose my own body between death and their infinitely sweeter selves.
I know what Freud would say about fantasies like that.
The worst thing about being a parent is the certain knowledge that at some point in their lives, your children will feel pain and that pain will separate them from you. And there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it.
Except take them with you when you're leaving the room.
Which is what Paula Eleazar Mendez apparently tried to do.
In other news, the Little Store had a normal Saturday and of course since the month of January has been so altogether fucking awful, it felt like money was raining from the sky.
In the midst of all those twenties floating down from heaven, I get a phone call from the ski patrol at the Lake Tahoe resort where Robin has gone for the weekend with the rest of his school on a snowboarding expedition. Robin is a demon snowboarder. Excellent balance, very quick reflexes.
"We're taking him for emergency first aid now –"
"What's the matter?" I cry. The phone call has interrupted a spirited exchange I'm having with a potential customer who wants to know what hot sauce is best for spraying on pit bulls.
I didn't really know there were criteria for pit bull torture so I have been winging the conversation, steering the guy – a hulk with shaven head and multiple matching skull tattoos – towards the most expensive stuff on the Hurt Your Friends shelf.
And now this.
"Well, apparently he took a tumble into some trees –"
"Was he wearing a helmet?" I scream.
The pit bull guy was taken aback.
"No helmet," says the voice on the phone. "He's kind of out of it –"
"Test his pupils for reactivity for God's sake!" I say.
"Oh. Yeah. Right. Good idea."
The pit bull guy asks, "Is something wrong?"
"His pupils are fine," says the voice on the phone. "He has a mild deformity of his left wrist –"
"What do you mean, 'A mild deformity?'? Is it a break? A sprain?"
"Like I said, a deformity. M'am, I'm not a doctor and you will just have to wait for the results of the x-ray."
Well, at this point of course I'm about to burst into tears picturing poor little Robin, my Squeaky Mouse, with about five inches of jagged white bone sticking out of his left sleeve and his little hand flapping alongside of it like a damp mitten. Don't worry, Robin, I silently vow. I will help you learn to use and love your new prosthesis! And if I have to take a third job cashiering at the local all night convenience store to pay off the deductible, so be it –
"Lady, you might want to wipe your nose," says the pit bull guy uneasily. He grabs the two bottles whose merits we've debated and shoves them at the cash register. "I might as well take both."
See? I have learned to exploit personal sorrow for business gain! I must remember to tell Donald Trump next time I see him at the Food Bank.
Robin, as it turns out, has what sounds like a minor sprain although the fucking doctor who called an hour later sure took his time telling me about it. First he wanted to tell me the history of Velcro. Then he wanted to update me on the history of slings: Herodotus tells us they were first used in the Scythian War, circa 3000 BC –
Finally he got to the chase. "Nothing showed up on the x-ray. But we cannot be sure! You must take him to a board-certified orthopedist who charges at least $200 an hour for follow up!"
Listening to this I felt like the world's worst mother because I knew I wasn't going to do any such thing.
I always become obsessed with stories like these.
I'm an excellent mother myself, but maternal instincts are a control center that sits far outside my personality. When my kids were younger, I often found myself using the third person – "Mommy doesn't want you to do that!" – as if I wasn't their mother at all but some kind of unpaid baby-sitter generously donating my services until such moment as their real mother returned from her extended vacation to Alpha Centauri. None of the parenting magazines I read said anything about the use of the third person. It worried me. I loved my children, of course, and often fantasized about them coming into harm's way so I could fling myself in front of that speeding car, that exploding power plant, that Luger-clutching madman, interpose my own body between death and their infinitely sweeter selves.
I know what Freud would say about fantasies like that.
The worst thing about being a parent is the certain knowledge that at some point in their lives, your children will feel pain and that pain will separate them from you. And there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it.
Except take them with you when you're leaving the room.
Which is what Paula Eleazar Mendez apparently tried to do.
In other news, the Little Store had a normal Saturday and of course since the month of January has been so altogether fucking awful, it felt like money was raining from the sky.
In the midst of all those twenties floating down from heaven, I get a phone call from the ski patrol at the Lake Tahoe resort where Robin has gone for the weekend with the rest of his school on a snowboarding expedition. Robin is a demon snowboarder. Excellent balance, very quick reflexes.
"We're taking him for emergency first aid now –"
"What's the matter?" I cry. The phone call has interrupted a spirited exchange I'm having with a potential customer who wants to know what hot sauce is best for spraying on pit bulls.
I didn't really know there were criteria for pit bull torture so I have been winging the conversation, steering the guy – a hulk with shaven head and multiple matching skull tattoos – towards the most expensive stuff on the Hurt Your Friends shelf.
And now this.
"Well, apparently he took a tumble into some trees –"
"Was he wearing a helmet?" I scream.
The pit bull guy was taken aback.
"No helmet," says the voice on the phone. "He's kind of out of it –"
"Test his pupils for reactivity for God's sake!" I say.
"Oh. Yeah. Right. Good idea."
The pit bull guy asks, "Is something wrong?"
"His pupils are fine," says the voice on the phone. "He has a mild deformity of his left wrist –"
"What do you mean, 'A mild deformity?'? Is it a break? A sprain?"
"Like I said, a deformity. M'am, I'm not a doctor and you will just have to wait for the results of the x-ray."
Well, at this point of course I'm about to burst into tears picturing poor little Robin, my Squeaky Mouse, with about five inches of jagged white bone sticking out of his left sleeve and his little hand flapping alongside of it like a damp mitten. Don't worry, Robin, I silently vow. I will help you learn to use and love your new prosthesis! And if I have to take a third job cashiering at the local all night convenience store to pay off the deductible, so be it –
"Lady, you might want to wipe your nose," says the pit bull guy uneasily. He grabs the two bottles whose merits we've debated and shoves them at the cash register. "I might as well take both."
See? I have learned to exploit personal sorrow for business gain! I must remember to tell Donald Trump next time I see him at the Food Bank.
Robin, as it turns out, has what sounds like a minor sprain although the fucking doctor who called an hour later sure took his time telling me about it. First he wanted to tell me the history of Velcro. Then he wanted to update me on the history of slings: Herodotus tells us they were first used in the Scythian War, circa 3000 BC –
Finally he got to the chase. "Nothing showed up on the x-ray. But we cannot be sure! You must take him to a board-certified orthopedist who charges at least $200 an hour for follow up!"
Listening to this I felt like the world's worst mother because I knew I wasn't going to do any such thing.
