What You Talkin’ ’Bout

by Jennifer Niesslein

          I am a bit of a neb-nose. Travelling on the interstate at dusk, I peer into those lonely farmhouses lit up from within. This is somebody’s home, I think, sentimental and maybe a little highway-drunk. Somebody’s fitting together her clarinet to practice, or reading old love letters, or standing in the kitchen in sweat socks, chopping up onions and peppers for the spaghetti sauce. 
          So I feel pretty lucky to be the one who reads every submission to Brain, Child. They are, after all, glimpses inside people’s homes. Even better, glimpses inside their minds. I enjoy nearly all of the stories. No matter the state of the prose, these essays are always passionate—no surprise, really, given the subjects of self, family, and kids. 
          After reading a thousand or so essays on motherhood, I’m starting to feel the effect. There is a strange relief that comes with knowing you and your brood aren’t so unique. I am not the only one who can judge a day by the appeal of driving off and not looking back. I’m not the only one who’s experienced an evil labor nurse. So far, no writer has described her private performance of the Blues Clues’ Here’s-the-mail-it-never-fails… dance, but I have faith that I am not alone. I am privy to the universals of motherhood.
          First, there is The Guilt, in three-quarters of the essays. "But, of course, I stayed, ashamed that I had failed in some big way," says one writer of life with a difficult stepdaughter and a new baby. A empty-nester writes, "Well, I’m free at all right. Free to feel guilty about the things I shouldn’t have done." And speaking for everyone who simultaneously has kids and a life: "Despite my best efforts, I do have guilt, lots of it."
          While some of us escape the guilt, nearly all the pieces touch on the niggling questions that, well, make motherhood worth writing about. How did I get a kid who’s so different from me? Is staying at home sacrificing my sanity? (Alternately: is going to work sacrificing the bond with my children? Will being a nice girl compromise my baby’s medical care? The words vary, but the question is always the same: How do I know I’m doing this right for my family and for me? Although you can bet your bippy that somewhere, a Ph.D. is doing research that suggests you’re doing it all wrong, there are no real answers. Or, as I’ve read, there are as many answers as there are families.
           For no obvious reason, the subjects of the works we receive tend to come in waves, as if some cosmic Linda Richman gave us our topic and instructed us to discuss it. Boys doing girly stuff. Food allergies. Kids discovering language. And then there are the heart-breaking essays: depression, the death of a child, and stories of kids who will, for many reasons, never live the life their mothers dreamed for them. I’ve also read many, many birth stories, and sometimes in excruciating detail (hey, I like a good mucus-plug description as much as the next girl, but …). Tell me what you’re going through, and I can tell you of three women grappling with the same thing.
          Lots of the writers like Happily Ever After. "And it was all worth it" endings abound—even in essays about horrifying birth experiences, public humiliations, ordeals so nightmarish you’d think they were urban legends. While I’m from the school of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Develop Selective Amnesia, I can’t doubt that these writers do feel it was all worth it, that they couldn’t possibly have their current circumstances without their past traumas. "All worth it" or not, the consensus seems to be that motherhood is fun. And tough. And rewarding. Usually.
           We are all in our lit farmhouses, stumbling over toys, reading bedtime stories, stealing away for (just one goddamned!) quiet moment. Goodnight, John-Boy. 

About the author: Jennifer Niesslein is co-editor of Brain, Child.