Jenny was her name. Her hair was blond. Her body was slim. She was a good girl, ever ready for me, always by my side. I have no recollection of the stuff we talked about. Or if we talked at all. It's very likely we communicated without words. I recall feeding her, taking her for walks, washing her gorgeous hair, combing it to a smooth finish, bathing her. I tucked her into bed at night, and awoke to her dedicated need for me each morning.
And though Jenny accompanied me through my childhood years, she was never quite enough for me. There was a certain void Jenny could not fill for me. She just didnt serve a quality of connection I was longing for. After all, Jenny was a plastic doll. And though I took care of her as best I could, there was so much more I wanted out of our togetherness, and plastic is only so functional.
I wanted the real deal. I wanted to be a real mother, to a real baby; to raise a child, to nurture it, to fashion it, to form it, to mold it into a well-balanced person who would go out in the world and rescue the universe, as I'd dreamed of doing myself.
My fantasy wasn't satisfied with the dream of only one child, I had a mind to have twenty children and raise them to be healthy, well-adjusted people.
I could not give a rational reason for wanting to have and raise twenty children, it was just an inner drive that needed expression and fulfillment.
Before long, my dream began to take shape, though not exactly in the way I thought it would.
I had thought that raising twenty children would be easy as pie. That I'd magically know how to be with each of my children in a way that would spare them the pains of growing up, the pains of not having every want met. I had so much love to give that each of them would feel satisfied every minute of every day. Most of all, I wanted to give them all a sense of safety and security, that nobody would ever hurt them or take away their innocence, that they'd be raised in a world that knew not of pain or suffering or deprivation or hate or violence or discomfort. I wanted to nurture and nurture and nurture some more. In my mind, I had an infinite storehouse of nurture that was seeking vessels within which to pour them. My milk was flowing and I wanted to feed the hungry; both to relieve myself of the engorgement, as well as to relieve the others of their hunger.
I have to say that raising children was not a new thing to me. Growing up, my mother rallied my help in raising my many younger siblings. By the age of fifteen my skills were so well-honed, I was already dubbed the family's ''psychologist''. I do not know what notions they harbored of those with the title ''psychologist'', though I reckon it had something to do with being a source of relief to those in distress. When the younger children needed comforting, they came to me. When any of the children had a tantrum, my parents would summon me to take care of the child. Within an instant, the tantrum abated. Magically. My medicine was so easily retrievable from my medicine bag, and so eagerly sipped by my sisters and brothers (as well as my mother). I had unique ability to comfort them when they were agitated, irritable, or otherwise unhappy. My spoken and unspoken message to them always was, ''I'm here for you, I hear you, I support you''.
I believe my attitude was borne out of a desperate need to have had someone do this for me, to have had someone be there for me, to hear me and to support me.
So then I began to have children of my own. All seemed to go as expected. The nighttime wakings. I was used to that. I had done it for my siblings. The feedings. I was accustomed to that; I'd done that for my siblings (not the breastfeeding part-- no oh-- only the bottle feeding and spoon/fork feeding) The bathing; oh how much fun that was! Being immersed in the water was the most fun part of the day! Putting the children to sleep was the sweetest part of it all. The quiet that reigned was nature's way of offering me what I needed after a day of taking care of the children's needs.
The years came and went,and now my children are older. Gone are the days of nighttime feedings, diapering, tending to runny noses, swinging and sliding in the park, gleefully jumping in the water puddles after a rain, joyfully jumping IN the rain! Gone are the days of innocence, when all that mattered was MOM.
As I take a look at my teenage children, I shake my head in dismay. Ever the perfectionist in the arena of ''child-raising'', I note every scratch, every dent, every mistake I have made in raising them. And I want to rectify. I want another chance. I want to do it again, and do it right. I want to do it again and again and again until I get it down pat. Until I manage to churn out the well-adjusted, healthy, functioning child that exists only in my imagination.
There are moments when I look at my teenaged children and my heart soars with pride and joy each time I note that I've affected them in positive ways. And there are moments when my heart writhes in pain, grief and guilt at the damage I have created.
And I want another chance, another opportunity of witnessing a brand new life unfold and not getting in its way.
So that is where I see myself in ten years from now. I see myself continuously striving to perfect this craft called mothering. In the meantime, I am hard at work honing the instrument so essential to this endeavor.
I wrote the piece above about three years ago, at a time when I was considering completing a degree in the ''helping'' profession. I wrote this piece in response to an admissions question, ''Where do you see yourself in ten years from now?''
Ultimately, I chose to not enroll in the program despite their clamorings- ''We're offering you a scholarship, please enroll with us!''
I chose instead to engage with the ongoing query of what it's like being a human being who is accompanying smaller human beings in this lifetime. I've set aside my decades-long pursuit of ''how to be a mother to these children'' and am ever so gently engaging with ''being a fuller human being with these children''.
Thank you for reading and accompanying me as I weave my way through time and space, to re-order and re-integrate my fragemented being.
