A LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF MOTHERHOOD

I have never been a mother. There was a time in my 30's when the biological wave of maternity swept over me and my first marriage. My then husband was 15 years older than me, with 2 little boys, three and five, from his first marriage, when I met him. I was 21 and he was 36. We lived together for 9 years before we wed. Early in our relationship, he made it clear that he never wanted to have children again, and I, in my youth, rapturous love, and naivety, agreed. Once we were married and I entered my thirties, everything began to unravel. I wanted a baby so bad I could taste it. This new all consuming feeling led to the most deep-rooted anger, resentment and guilt either of us had ever experienced. We ended up in therapy which led to our eventual divorce. I was 35.

But I had my school, and everyday I was surrounded by the faces of over 100 children varying in age from 2 1/2 to 12. And it was enough for me. I convinced myself that I was never meant to have children, and the years went by. I enjoyed a slew of men friends, but I never had a baby. Instead, I had dogs.

I raised all of them from puppyhood: first a sickly maltese, (the runt of the litter), then an Old English Sheepdog (he looked liked a bear cub when he was 8 weeks old), and finally a Shih Tzu who lived for 17 joyous years. All of my motherly instincts were in full force during their lifetimes. I would be up in the middle of the night at the slightest whimper. I cleaned up poop and pee and soft, fluffy little rear ends. I force-fed baby food through an eye dropper to my first, the Maltese at one point, and rocked all of them in my arms at one time or another. They were my babies.

But this is the story of mothers I know. First there is my one and only wonderful Mom, who is 87 and still alive. And everyday, I thank God that I am that lucky to still have my Mom at my baby boomer age. She isn't senile and she is in relatively good health for a woman her age. I mean to call her everyday, but I get busy, or I'm a bit depressed and I don't want her to sense my mood, which she would, so my calls are more infrequent than they should be.

I have one sister, a few years younger than me, who is the mother of a 26 year old, a 22 year old and a nine year old. I have watched her bring up the children from infancy and today, she is a single mother, and all three children live at home with her.

There there is my brother's wife, who is Italian. She has three sons: a 45, 25 and 21 year-old, and all three live at home!

I know my husband's mother in Italy as well, who raised two sons: the younger one, 46, lived at home until recently.

I know these mothers intimately, as only a daughter and sister can. I love them, respect them,and admire them for all that it takes to be a mother. But I wouldn't trade places with them for all the tea in China.

I wouldn't want their job at my age and have to reckon with the results of my mothering abilities. I wouldn't want to have my grown up children living at home with all their little idiosyncrasies. I wouldn't want to fret about the boyfriends, the girlfriends, the sex, the drugs, the driving and the late nights. I wouldn't want to have monitor internet activities to stave off potential God knows what out there. I wouldn't want to deal with their lack of ambition or goals. I wouldn't want to have to support them when they should be self-supporting. I wouldn't want to be the one who always had to be in the middle of a sibling squabble, large or small. And I wouldn't want to have to settle for the companionship of my grown-up children instead of a mate or outside interests. I certainly wouldn't want the guilt of being too much of a 'friend' to my children rather than a parent. Or giving them too much or not having enough to give them. I wouldn't want to have to be both mother and father and finally, I wouldn't want to go to bed at night, knowing I did the best I could, but wishing still, that I had done better.


Life is so different today for these Gen X and Yer's. Where we grew up with television, they grew up with cell phones, text messaging and XBoxes. We baby boomers grew up in a relatively rich and stable economy with a strong work ethic while these kids live in a technical, wobbly economy, and still don't know what they want to do or be when they grow up. How could baby boomer parents possibly have known what lay in store for their offspring? How could I or anyone possibly blame them for not preparing these children for this frenetic crazy world we now live in.

What I know is that hopefully, if a parent instills ethics, principles, morals,responsibility and etiquette in their children from an early age, then, somewhere, down the road, these kids wake up one fine day, find a good job, make a decent living, move out, get married, raise children, and start the whole rigamarole all over again.

In the meantime, I no longer have my beloved dog. On January 10,2007 we had to put him down at the ripe old age of 17. And now, we really can't afford to have another dog. I miss having a baby.