Comments on: Becoming My Mother Watch, Part 1

By: Meg Thornton

Meg Thornton — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:27:50 +0000

Oh, and the smiley there was meant to be a closing bracket. Although the winkey does fit in with the spirit of the comment anyway.

By: Meg Thornton

Meg Thornton — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:26:43 +0000

I’m slowly but surely gaining a tendency from my father’s side of the family – one toward misplacing words. Both my father and his older brother have this habit of stopping in the middle of a sentence and searching for the appropriate word (which means the rare gatherings of both families can turn out quite interesting, with four children and two spouses filling in the blanks in the conversation for them). I’m starting to do the same. It’s been gathering speed lately, and the implications are chilling. Who knows, by the time I’m fifty, I could be proclaiming whole sentences of metasyntactic filler (“Thingy wossname whosamajig thingummy whatsit doodah.”) rather than coming out with sane conversation.

Fortunately, I can generally find the correct word when I’m typing.

(Oh, and I’m with the people who want to grow up to be either Granny Weatherwax or Diana Trent. I figure I’m going to be a cranky old woman anyway – may as well do it with style).

By: Harriet Warmer

Harriet Warmer — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:33:37 +0000

OlderTD, I just wanted to say me so too on the tired thing, and that your original post actually spoke brilliantly to my condition. Thank you for sharing it.

By: OlderThanDirt

OlderThanDirt — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:00:43 +0000

Colleen and Caitlin, I should never have posted on a day that felt like Thursday. I was so upset by your reaction and I was fuming, “I never said that my experience was universal” then went back and read my own post which says “for those of you…”. Sigh.

You’ve no doubt moved on, but I wanted to say, point taken about universality. And thanks for being tender with me, I actually cried when I read your reactions to my second post. It has been the kind of week where the kindness of strangers is almost too wonderful to bear.

By: Piffle

Piffle — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:59:49 +0000

Ohh. Waiting for God is a great show, very, very funny. I don’t think I want to be quite as cynical as she is though.

By: Colleen (but not prettypear Colleen)

Colleen (but not prettypear Colleen) — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:22:46 +0000

OlderThanDirt, like Caitlin said, your post was not wasted at all. I absolutely empathize with mothers who are just bone-tired, and I was not trying to imply in any way that you didn’t love your children. I’m sorry if it came off that way to you, because that was certainly not my intent.

I was just trying to make the point that it can really hurt to be questioned on your own life experience, and that it can be problematic to assume that one’s own experiences are universal. That’s all. Again, I am sorry you were hurt by my words.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:36:34 +0000

No, OlderThanDirt, I absolutely understood what you were saying and it was heartfelt and enlightening . I was just pointing out that sadly that’s not always the case — and while that’s not pretty, it’s a truth worth acknowledging. Please don’t feel your post was wasted.

By: OlderThanDirt

OlderThanDirt — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:18:29 +0000

O.K., your mother really wishes you were never born. Evidently I am guilty of dismissing your feelings.

I was trying to say that I get tired of being a mother but I still love my children.

Here’s something straight from a martyred mother: Never Mind.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:45:59 +0000

I hear that, Godless Heathen. I used to have to retrace my steps to remember what I was doing. Nowadays I retrace my steps and that doesn’t help either.

By: Godless Heathen

Godless Heathen — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:42:12 +0000

I’ll purposefully cross the 8 feet into my living room then stand there and wrack my brains trying to remember what it was I was looking for. If I don’t have whatever it is in my hand, I’ll completely forget what I’m doing. Sometimes having it in my hand doesn’t help either.