Promises in the Dark

I make a lot of small promises to myself as life goes on. I’d say 90% of them are completely broken – things like, “Oh dude, I will TOTALLY get up early tomorrow and then I will work out! Yes! I promise! EAT THE KUGEL NOW!” And then of course I don’t, but I have already eaten the kugel, and now, actually, I am wearing the kugel in the form of two saddlebags and maybe a paunch. But whatever.

One of the biggest categories of promises I make to myself involve what kind of parent I’ll be – or rather, what kind of person I’ll be as a parent (Navel-gaze much?). And while I have plenty to throw into the “Oh my God, my parents fucked that up and I’ll never do that” category, for the most part I had an awesome childhood with great parents who, by and large, did everything right. And I’m not fool enough to think that I won’t make dumb mistakes and also just plunk the goddamn kid in front of the television so that I can take a shower RIGHT FUCKING NOW OR DIE. (Because those people annoy me too. I’m not a mom and they annoy even me. I’m not sure how actual mothers deal with it. “No television until they’re 17!! Stunts their development, you know! Down with Baby Einstein!” Ugh. I’ll stunt your development, sister, with a Reef in your frontal lobe.)

God, where am I going with this? Ah, invalidation. That’s right. I promise myself to do my best not to invalidate the life or struggles of someone who is childless, just because they do not now, or choose not to ever, have a child. I can kind of feel parents rolling their eyes in my general direction already, but dude, I don’t ever want to lose this perspective, so bear with me. And let me just announce right here and now that you’re probably right, and I will eat these words.

But invalidation is a pretty shitty thing, and it happens every day, in all kinds of categories, from all kinds of people. But for some reason, in my admittedly subjective and also non-scientific sample group, parents tend to unintentionally do this to those who don’t have kids quite often. It’s in the small kinds of things – small truths, small feelings, small terrors – that accidentally invalidate people with different lives. Like our lives up until this point have been completely meaningless, and all of our challenges will be laughable in the not-so-distant future. So just forget what ever’s bothering you and go have a vodka martini BECAUSE YOU CAN (or wine in a box. Whatever.)

I’m not saying y’all aren’t right, and I am by no means trying, in a horrible twist of semantics, to invalidate the challenges of parents – no, not at all, for I can see that it is, indeed, the ultimate challenge – but it is a little bit frustrating to hear, repeatedly, that your life will change so much that you will laugh – laugh! – at how obnoxious, self-absorbed, inappropriately stressed you are compared to what you will be because, after all, that’s nothing. It’s not that it’s not true, it’s that, like many invalidating things, it’s unfair to the person who doesn’t know anything differently than their own barometer built from personal experience. They don’t know that perhaps in a year this really will be nothing, so to them, it’s totally something, and that’s all that matters.

I went to college with a girl who spent the vast majority of her time telling the rest of us that we didn’t know how easy we had it. And in retrospect, compared to her, we did have it easy. Her mother was an abusive alcoholic, and she spent the majority of her college years stripping (yes, stripping) in a nearby town to pay for her tuition, because she saw that as her only way. And while I was in full agreement that her life was, indeed, more of a daily grind than my own, I didn’t really dig on hearing about it everytime I mentioned I had a zit or had cramps, like I had no right to have any sort of discomfort because I didn’t strip, and my mother wasn’t an alcoholic. I still had cramps, and lo, they were annoying. Maybe not abusive alcoholic mother annoying, but still a part of every day frustrations. And yet we were subjected to repeated admonishments of “Oh, you think that’s bad? I have a zit and cramps and I have a shitty mother who drinks, you ungrateful sod! Take that!” And take it, we did. (Please, I’m not intentionally making light of her situation, for it was truly awful.)

Now, I’m not saying that you’re all not right. I promise, I believe you. It’s just that, as a friend recently put it, I’m not sure that being child-absorbed is that much better than being self-absorbed. It’s just different, albeit in a massively life-changing, visceral way that I have long accepted that I cannot fully imagine. And while it’s more altruistic in the sense that it’s caring for another person, it’s a choice you made, an extension of yourself that satisfies some part of you. There are many selfish aspects of being a parent, just like there are many selfish aspects of the rest of our lives – even the hard stuff – of that I am sure. And there is unselfish love and adoration, and lists and lists of things that I, or anyone else who doesn’t have a child, cannot imagine. But nothing makes me want to stab my eyes out more than when I hear that people who don’t have kids don’t know what love actualy is, however hyperbolic (full of hyperbole? It’s not a word, is it? Dear God.) the intentions. This burns me because that’s so unfair to those who make different life choices, especially those who choose to never have children, because lo, those barren fools will never know love! And while maybe – no, definitely- parent/child love is infinitely more fierce, because of so many other things that are impossible to explain or quantify, it’s no less valid.

And you know what’s funny? Someone told me that it doesn’t end even when you have kids. Someone with kids who are older than yours is always ready with, “You think you have it tough now, just you wait! It gets worse!” and “Oh please. You have it easy. Talk to me when she’s 12.” And the cycle of invalidation continues. How crappy of us.

So I guess I’m trying to promise myself right now that when I do have children, I will do my best – my very best – not to invalidate the lives of people who made different choices than I did, or who just happen to be in a different place. Even if I see some sort of holy light that transforms the way I view the world, and I see childless people as a lower life form who lack proper perspective, I’m going to try very hard to remember that. In fact, I’m going to try to start now, actually, and accept that everyone’s experiences stand alone, and can only be framed in light of their own bag of life’s tokens, no matter what the circumstances.

I’m making this sound like a much bigger deal than it is. It’s not that it keeps me up at night, or I’m deeply offended on a regular basis – I’m not. And I’m so not at all saying I know what it’s like to be a parent, not at all. And when I join the ranks, fully expect it to blow me away, and God, I will probably laugh that I ever wrote this, but I think I’m going to try not to.

*Pat Benatar. Second appearance.

23 comments October 23rd, 2006