in-grown grown-ups

reckoning with our inevitably-flawed childhoods is tough work. i got some insight recently while reading a book called 'the drama of the gifted child' by alice miller, PhD. one of her patients described the way her mother was so anxious to return to a professional life that she was silently instructed to 'be a big girl' and take care of herself while mommy got back to her life. she was unconsciously expected to suppress her feelings of longing for her absent mother and commended for her remarkable maturity beyond her years. when she had her own kids, she felt imprisoned by them and her own maternal instincts were left dormant until she discovered that she had been raising a child her whole life--her self.

my heart did that quiver signal of recognition when i read it, not because my mom had to work (although she did, and i was one of those early 'latch-key kids'), but because for as long as i can remember, adults were always commenting on my maturity. my mom's mom died when my mom was only 9. when i came into this world, i think i picked up where my grandmother's mothering left off and became an emotional caretaker for my mother. which isn't to say that my mom was emotionally unstable. i remember my childhood with fondness and my mother with much admiration. but there was an unmistakable sense of responsibility that i assumed at a young age. it was complicated by the fact that my mom had seizures and so i had the additional sense of taking care of her in a very literal and traumatic way.

so i was never one of those teenagers who had their picture-perfect story completed for getting married at such and such age and having x number of kids. in fact, i swore i didn't want kids...and yet when love intoxicates a person, the most natural manifestation (for me) is in the form of creating children. and now i have two beautiful kids that inspire my greatest good every day. but i struggle constantly with feeling overwhelmed by their demands, which i know is natural to some degree. yet how many mothers have the almost-constant support and participation of their husbands? i do...and i still need more.

when i read the example in 'the gifted child', i knew that i was getting some instruction. i searched my heart and saw the wounds--tender, unaddressed and quietly bleeding. best not to draw too much attention to my own needs when everyone else's needs take precedence. i find myself romanticizing the pre-child life, the freedom, the lack of responsibility...but now i know that the unhealthy dwelling upon this impossible utopian dream derives from the fact that i have been raising children my whole life--myself and my mother's 9-year-old child within. so the additional responsibility of my own children became unbearable.

until now. with the light of awareness and the knowledge that i can mourn the loss of my childhood, i have the chance to live vicariously through my children and give them the fantastic playfulness i missed.