Today, I Don’t Want To Be a Mother
By: Jamie Fiore Higgins
Tags: Homeschooling, Motherhood, Women, Anxiety, Coronavirus

Photo by guille pozzi on Unsplash

Today, I Don’t Want To Be a Mother

I Want To Be Mothered, Instead

“Does the Easter Bunny have Corona,” my four-year-old said. We were standing in our front yard under a blooming dogwood tree, observing our surroundings using our senses. It was part of a lesson her preschool teacher emailed us. The air was fragrant with spring blossoms, and birds chirped and flew above us. The neighborhood was busier in some ways, quieter in others, no cars were on the roads, but a lot of walkers and cyclists were, taking advantage of the mild New Jersey spring day.

“No, the Easter Bunny is okay,” I said, “and doesn’t have Corona.”

Easter is in a few days, and the Easter Bunny usually comes to our house. The days before the big day I fill baskets for my four kids, with bubbles and sidewalk chalk and chocolates and little toys. I stuff dozens of plastic eggs with candy for our annual hunt. We dye and decorate boiled eggs the night before. This year, I don’t want to do a thing.

The idea of Easter this year, a time of year that usually fills me with happiness and hope, is filling me apathy and dread, obligation and responsibility.

I’m like the yoyo that I put in my son’s Easter basket last year. I wake up energized and ready for the day. I’m going to rock home schooling, I’m going to cook a healthy and delicious meal, I’m going to be positive, I’m going to be productive. I’m going to look back on this period and be happy with what I accomplished. But by 3 in the afternoon I’m under a blanket on my couch, my fear pushing me into the brown leather cushions, begging for sleep to quiet my worries, while my kids amuse themselves with movies and video games.

I’m safe and grateful and lucky, but also scared and frightened and cheated. I can’t fall asleep at night, my chest is tight, and I can’t take a deep breath in, while my kids snore in their rooms down the hall. My bottle of Xanax, once saved for emergencies, is taken out most nights now and is almost empty. When I do fall asleep it’s not for long, I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, convinced my dad, a lung cancer survivor who lives in a nearby town, is dead.

I’m supposed to be a buoy for my children, I’m supposed to keep them engaged and upbeat, I’m supposed to keep them from being scared, I’m supposed to be their goddamn mother, but I’m drowning, a rusty heavy anchor falling into the bottom of the ocean floor.

Right now, at this moment, I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to mother my kids, I don’t want to mother my husband, I don’t want to mother my parents. Instead, I want to be mothered.

I want to crawl up on my mother’s lap and tell her that I’m petrified. That my anxiety comes over me like a rogue wave in a once calm sea. That one moment, all is well and I’m peaceful and stable, and then the next moment my fear shakes my world like an earthquake, making me unable to stand. I want to cry and sob and have my back rubbed and hear a lullaby sung in my ear. I want to have my hair combed through with her fingers and smell her lilac hand lotion. I want to hear her tell me that I am safe, that I am okay, that I am well. I just want to be mothered today. I want to be saturated in love and peace and have nothing to do in return but just be.

So today, I’m going to mother myself. I’m going to take a longer shower relishing the white noise of the rushing water, so I can’t hear the kids fighting. I’m going to not double check their homework assignments. I’m going to break my screen time limits and let them watch whatever they want. I’m going to serve cereal for dinner. And I’m going to use that extra time, to mother myself. To pray, to read, to write, and to breathe. I’m going to free myself from the responsibility of doing all my mother things, just for today, and instead mother myself.

I will find the strength to mother them tomorrow.