Column: Savagemama

When Mama Ain’t Happy

By Jennifer Savage, 10-19-07

There are days I feel exceptionally greedy.

Today is one of those days.

I want and want and want for no other reason than I want. I want Eliza to take a nap. I want to eat three meals today and to not have a gnawing in my gut or the head-spinning anxiety that hunger brings. I want a long, hot bath without the dog scratching at the door. I want to sit and read something for longer than five drowsy minutes before I fall asleep at night. I want the bills to pay themselves.

I want a close relationship with my happy, well-adjusted child and I want it to be easier.

These are the days when I’m so caught up in my own head that I forget to ask Seth how his day went or what’s going on with him. We pass the night making dinner, folding laundry, tending to the baby without much conversation because we seem stuck in function, practicality, and something that feels like survival.

These are the days when I want to walk across the kitchen without a little person grabbing and hanging onto my leg; when just thinking about the full day of baby care that lies ahead gets on my nerves.

These are the days when I’m pretty sure I’m the worst mother in the world.

Well-meaning people tell me that this won’t last forever, that I will miss these days when Eliza is 14. I know they are right but on these days I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine a time when I can get my work done, have time to write and catch up with my husband.  I can’t imagine a time when she will need so much less of me.

These days are usually the ones where I have a list of to dos so long it could circle the moon. Work deadlines, a dirty house, a garden that needs straw. And I think somehow Eliza senses that my attention is elsewhere, that I’m distracted and she needs me even more. And I need her to play in the floor for 10 more minutes and she needs to crawl in my lap and tap on my computer keyboard. She’s even started calling my computer “no no” because that’s what I say to her when she teeters toward me hand outstretched, pointer finger ready.

Then I feel awful, like I’m ignoring her to write some essay, meet someone else’s expectations. It’s on these days that I hear myself saying things like “the reason men don’t have babies is because they can’t hack it” and I look around to see whose mouth these words came out of. I don’t believe that men can’t hack it but when I’m in this place of stretched-too-thin resentment comes from strange places and settles on those that are easy targets.

Most of the time, this usually when somehow I hit a reset button and I open my eyes for what seems like the first time in days. I look up and all of the disjointedness comes into focus. 

I put “no no” away deciding that, once again, work can wait, that writing assignment can wait. I get on the floor and play blocks, I put Eliza in the backpack for the fifth time to try and get her to take a nap. When she pops her head away from me and says, “dawg” I pack her lunch and we drive to town.

Today she fell asleep after about 20 minutes in the car. I drove to work, put the car in park, pulled out “no no” and started typing. She’s still asleep and when she wakes up, we’ll go get something to eat. Hopefully she’ll be refreshed and playful and so will I.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up in the morning and keep trying to be a good mama and good to myself. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find that balance. 

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