Writings
Page 2

My Child by Krista K. Long

What Little Girls' Dreams Are Made Of by Kase

Mothers of Criminals

Untitled by Susanne Tyler

My Child

By Krista K. Long

Every evening, I have a ritual. After the house is quiet and everything is settled, I go tuck my oldest son in. After I re-arrange the sprawled limbs and move his head up onto the pillow, I think about our day. I smooth the sheets and just stand there, lovingly gazing at an image of innocence. As I do this I take a mental inventory. I relax, open up my mind and relive the events that brought me up to that point. I forgive him for his misbehavior, praise him for his achievements and bring myself to a center to face the next day.

This is not easy. My son is what most would term a spirited child. At three and a half years old, he is quite the terror. In fact, I am writing this after cleaning up a quart of cooking oil he spilled on the kitchen floor while I was feeding his little brother. He is very headstrong, and is not the type to pay any attention to admonishments, threats or rules. He is also extremely intelligent and able to circumvent any child safety devices I have used.

Asleep he looks like a blond, blue-eyed cherub. He has those chubby cheeks and a lower lip that sticks out just a bit. Awake, his face takes on another countenance. The chin is set, and he has this look that says "Just try and stop me!" My biggest concern in life is keeping him from doing bodily harm to him or us. He is not the type of child to believe you if you tell him that a hot stove will burn you.

In fact, he has touched the burner to my stove, not once, but three times. We have a standard "Stay out of the kitchen while mommy is cooking rule." I won't tell you how many dinners I have burned while trying to make sure he stays out of trouble. I will tell you that at this moment he has a cut and huge bruise on his cheek from jumping off the couch and landing against my rocking chair. I live in fear of being accused of child abuse. I am thankful that he behaves the same way at daycare, so they know where all the bruises come from.

After all this, would I give him up? No, I won't, not in a million years. He is my own special someone. I am blessed to have an opportunity to mold this child into an adult, and watch as the traits that get him in trouble now are appreciated later. So here I stand, emptying my mind, letting the love flow in and the frustration flow out. I take a deep breath and go to bed. I am ready to face tomorrow. He will surprise me, frustrate me, and teach me more than I ever imagined.

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What Little Girls Are Made Of

By Kase

I don't pretend to know it all, Life would be dull if I did. But when my daughter was 4 and had to go for open heart surgery, we tried to keep her in a good frame of mind and Happy, Happy, Happy!!!!

This is one of the games we played. We did not want her to worry or have nightmares about the upcoming operation so this is what we did.

We took a piece of paper and cut it up into little squares, on each square we asked her what she loved most. Then wrote it down She said things like, BUTTERFLIES, RAINBOWS, STAWBERRY ICE CREAM, UNICORNS, CLOUDS, ETC.

We then took these squares of paper folded them and put them into a class jar with a lid. We set the jar on her dresser and each night before she went to sleep she'd reach in and take out a folded piece of paper and read what it said.

For instance if it said Butterflies, we would say your going to dream of butterflies tonight! What color do you think they will be? Where do you think you will find them?

Then we would place the butterfly paper under her pillow. Then come morning she would tell us all about her wonderful dream.

Kase

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Rhonda of Parents Voices submitted this letter to me:

Erma Bombeck's Author's Note:

I cannot possibly improve or add anything to this anonymous letter received in May 1982, from a Mother in upstate New York. She belongs in this Book.

Dear Erma:

You feel like my best friend. The only thing that surprised me was to find out that I'm taller than you. Anyway, I have something I want to talk to you about. There is no solution to this. I just want to let you know we exist, we are human too and we hurt with the helplessness I can't begin to describe.

I belong to a group of people who don't even know they are a group. We have no organization, no meetings, no spokespersons, and we don't even know each other. Each of us as individuals, are way in the back of the closet with the rats and cockroaches. We many not even be any different from our neighbors. We look the same, talk and act the same ,yet when people know our secret, they shun us as lepers.

We are the parents of criminals. We too love our children. We too tried to bring then up the best way we knew how. There is small solace in reading of a movie star or politician's kid being arrested. It helps but little to realize that our pain is not confined to the poor.

(Although studies have shown that a rich kid is more likely to be sent home with a reprimand from the police where a poor kid will wind up in jail.)

We are the visitors. Mothers Day, Christmas, ours cannot come see us, so we go to them. For some of us, the hurt is so unbearable, we cut out the cause-we give up on them. Some parents don't visit, write, some don't acknowledge the living human being they bore.

I have not given up on my son, though the court has. I still cry, and plead, and encourage and pray. And I still love him.

I search my memory. Where did I fail him? My son was planned, wanted, and was exactly the all-around kid I had hoped for. I spent lots of time with him, reading stories, going for walks, playing catch, teaching him to fly a kite. We went to church together every Sunday since he was 4. He did all right in school and his teachers liked him. He had lots of friends and they were always playing ball or going fishing, all the regular kid things.

He was on Little League. I went to every game. He won a trophy for All-Stars. He was just a regular kid.

That's only one. Mine. There are thousands of them. Criminals with ordinary childhoods. We, their parents, trying to live ordinary lives. And maybe being ostracized by family members and certainly by society. ("Maybe it's contagious!")

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. My son is running from the police. I didn't do it, I don't condone it, nor try to justify what he did. But I still love him, and it hurts.

If you know which book this is from, so I can give credit, please let me know.

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By Susanne Tyler

Lompoc, CA USA

Tomorrow is my baby's birthday, and I'm torn between pride and anguish. A year ago today he left my body only to take my heart with him. I can't imagine life without him, and it scares me sometimes, most often when I realize just how fragile life really is. He walks, talks and throws temper tantrums like an older child does, but every day he comes up to me and kisses my leg letting me know just how much he still needs and loves me, and sometimes I can feel my heart breaking from how much it swells with his acknowledgement.

I now know why women can lift cars up off their babies, why even the smallest of women can take down a 6' tall intruder when it means that their children will be protected, and why when someone else's child dies every other mothers heart breaks and they can empathize with that poor family at their loss. I am now old enough to appreciate what I have, and I am grief stricken that I was too sick to feel any of this with my daughter, who I am now playing catch up with. I feel so guilty that I couldn't stare at her wonderingly when they handed her to me (I imagine that the drugs they gave me didn't help) and marvel at how perfect she really was, but I can now. She is the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen, and smart as a whip, stubborn as a mule and loving as anyone could ever want.

I'm sorry if this seemed a bit deep and over the top, but I had a realization as I was kissing my kids goodnight tonight: someday, they will not live here anymore. Someday, they will be kissing someone else goodnight. Ah, the agony and joy of motherhood.

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