The Day Fiction Helped Me Be a Mom

Prior to becoming a parent, I assumed that our children would have fifty percent of Chad's genetics and fifty percent of my own. This was simple, logical math. And then my oldest daughter was born and didn't seem to understand how math worked. Her DNA looks something like this. 

    97.43% Geneva Marie

+    2.57% Chad Roger     

  100.00% Vienna Brooke

The minute genetics she inherited from my husband show up in her beautiful little face and her ability to watch and assist with every step of the deer gutting process. This means that I am left trying to mother a smaller, better looking version of myself who occasionally saunters into my kitchen bearing animal organs. This experience is both beautiful and ugly.... sometimes all within the space of five minutes.

We seem to unknowingly push each other's buttons, leaving us both frustrated and defensive. Her actions and reactions mirror my own in a way that leaves me speechless and worried. Seeing the worst parts of myself come out in another person is so humbling. In the middle of a particularly difficult day I thought, "I have to figure out a way to make our similarities work FOR us instead of AGAINST us." And then I remembered Marmie from Little Women.

There's a powerful scene after Amy falls through the ice where Jo's anger towards Amy has dissolved. In its place is a deep grief for the ways she lets her anger control her. She says to Marmie, "You don't know, you can't guess how bad it is! It seems as if I could do anything when I'm in a passion. I get so savage, I could hurt anyone and enjoy it. I'm afraid I shall do something dreadful some day, and spoil my life, and make everybody hate me. Oh, Mother, help me, do help me!" 

Marmie's reply leaves Jo stunned. "You think your temper is the worst in the world, but mine used to be just like it. I've been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so." 

I knew what I had to do. I sat with Vienna and told her the truth. I told her that the way she acts on the outside is often the way I feel on the inside. I told her that I have to work really hard to keep my emotions under control and I asked her if we could work on it TOGETHER. She looked at me with disbelief in her perfect brown eyes and said "I did not know you feel this way." I assured her that I do. A lot. 

When she walked away, she looked proud and happy like she had been left in on a Very Important Secret. She understood that we were on the same Struggling to Wrangle Emotions Team. I felt the beauty seeping back into the space between us.