We Can Cry Alone, or Laugh With Our Friends

At age twenty-five, when my mother discovered that she was pregnant for the third time in three years, she plopped her first two in their cribs, crawled into bed and cried all day.  Like so many of her generation, Mom felt utterly alone. She was overwhelmed but felt that she had nobody to tell, much less to ask for help.

Mom told me about the wretched day that she was invited to her first girlfriend event after giving birth.  As she headed for the party, her car hit an enormous pothole and her breasts exploded, ruining her only nice silk shirt.  She burst into tears. 

I wish I could have climbed out of my crib and told Mom to throw a shawl over the mess, go to the party and turn it into a funny story.  It would have freed everyone to laugh about their own exploding boob stories and other maternal calamities.

We can cry alone or laugh with our friends.

Instead, Mom went home, called and made an excuse, desperately worked to get the stain out of her blouse and tried not to resent her ravenous child.  Perfection is humorless.  Imperfection can be hilarious.

In her early forties, my mother shared with me her sense of betrayal by girlfriends who had projected perfection while dying inside. All she’d heard from her friends was about their perfect kids, perfect spouses, perfect lives.  I will never forget the sadness in her eyes when she said, “Then they all turned forty and got divorced.” Mom realized that she, too, had participated in the lie.

The hardest truth for my mother to own was that she was bored—deeply, profoundly bored—with diapers and cooking and baby talk and marriage. I adore children, especially mine, but understand that if they were my whole world, instead of the most important part of my world, I would have been miserable too.

Perhaps inspired by the lack of candor my mother felt with her girlfriends, I try to do the opposite.  Some may call it over-sharing. When I wander into a conversation where things are getting a little too immaculate, I intentionally change the narrative.

What’s the worst mom thing you’ve ever done?  Name three things your partner does that drive you crazy. If you could have a torrid affair with one famous person, who would you choose?  What do people think about you that you wish were true, but isn’t?

Truth can absolutely set us free. My favorite book club meeting was a night that we admitted that none of us liked the book, broke out the wine and encouraged our delightful Persian member to thread all our moustaches.