When Adam and Lisa were 6 and 7, I wrote the following:
”While I`m sitting here writing, there are four kids playing in another room. If I recorded the audio accompanying their ”playing Scrabble” (that`s what they tell me they are doing), there would be shrieks, thumps, crashes, chatter, doors slamming, the sloshing of liquids, occasional laughter. . . .constantly. Not a single second contains only the sound of my
typewriter. And today is a good day because they remembered to turn off the television set when they quit watching. It will soon grow very quiet, however, and that is the signal that they have now begun to misbehave seriously.
”But for now, all this racket is setting the stage for this mother to have a real case of nerves by about 5 o`clock. The racket is stacked up next to the three fights that I broke up within the last half hour, jumping up every two minutes to answer the phone or the door or to get the dog back into the yard so she doesn`t get pregnant or hit by a car, the numerous requests for food, water, juice, Coke and chewing gum in between the breakfast routine, the lunch routine and my daily janitorial chores. I`m now starting to view another day slipping by–another day when success or failure will be measured by how depressed or nauseated I will be once we somehow get through it. Another day that I will set against all of the others, nearly identical–with the knowledge that tomorrow will be the same.”
My reaction to that moment in time was, of course, exaggerated by the fact that I was trying to concentrate on my writing, being constantly interrupted and driven crazy while working against a deadline.
People who do not have children cannot have any sense of what it is like to attempt the work of writing, or any work, under the conditions I described. They may also make the assumption that once children get past a certain age, those kinds of stresses fade away.
As I write this, more than a dozen years have passed, and Lisa and Adam are adults, still living at home. In addition we have living with us Steve and Matt, both friends of Adam`s. Steve works full time, and Matt is a student. Four young adults. Terrific young adults. I adore both Steve and Matt and often forget they are not my very own.
But . . . .
While I`m sitting here writing, there are four young adults watching a videotape in another room. If I recorded the audio accompanying their
”watching,” there would be shrieks, thumps, chatter, doors slamming, the sloshing of liquids, the scraping of chairs, slight conflicts over who is wearing whose shirt and who stole whose beer out of whose dresser drawer and raucous laughter. Not a single second contains only the clackety-clack of my word processor or the sound track of the video.
Earlier in the day–Saturday–they were coming in and out of the house, asking me how they looked, what they did with their books, how they should have their hair cut, when the computer might be free, what`s for dinner, where`s the coffee, what I`m writing, why I`m writing it, where`s the hair dryer, and could they borrow $5 for gas. ”Here, anything. Take it and go.”
Before they all collected themselves to watch the video, and my fingers were poised just above the keyboard, Adam entered the room to give me a long, detailed and unsolicited discourse on what is wrong with my car and why I should sue the folks who were supposed to have fixed it. I could not very well ignore him. Just before he started in, I had received a call from Lisa, who was stranded and needed a ride. At some point, on resuming work, it seeped into my consciousness that Matt and Adam were tapping out rhythms on their bodies and on the kitchen table. I had no idea how long they had been doing this before I realized that it was driving me nuts.
While some women are able to cope with the never-ending stress of motherhood, many don`t fare so well. For the woman who finds it extremely difficult, the results can range from an uneasy feeling that makes her wonder if she isn`t just going slightly crazy to a life of horror and self-hatred. I have known many women who have never shown the slightest sign of anxiety until they had children to care for. Often, for reasons unapparent to them, these mothers are suddenly thrown emotionally out of kilter.
One mother I interviewed had this to report:
”When I was first married I spent two years getting my master`s degree and another year and a half working as a medical social worker. I then had a very wanted son and seven month later got pregnant with another wanted son. However, I remember when I was eight months into my second pregnancy, I felt great fear of not being able to cope with two young children. It was at that point that I began being afraid to drive on the freeway because I was afraid I would pass out. When my younger son was 8 months old, I began having anxiety attacks, so I finally went to psychologist, who really helped me realize that I was so tied to my family (going to grocery story was my big outing) that I was afraid of losing control of my own life.”
A friend discussed her situation with me at length:
”The first time I noticed I no longer had `nerves of steel` came while I was calmly sipping a cup of coffee in a friend`s kitchen. I had taken my children, 2 and 3 years old, to play with my friend`s 4-year-old boy. It had been a nerve-racking drive on the freeway, but I managed it neatly, or so I thought. In any case, while Linda and I sat talking, her doorbell suddenly rang, and I understood the expression, `I jumped out of my skin.` I did just that.
”I didn`t recognize it as the first signal that I was gradually becoming jumpy and tense–the first step toward deep depression. The roots of all of this can be traced back to the very beginning–the day I first felt anxiety about a new baby, and the rush of conflicting emotions and fear that apparently all new mothers have. From that point, I just started building my negative bank account, while I still appeared to be fairly calm for a few years.
”While I mistakenly assumed that I was adjusting to child-generated confusion and noise, I was instead becoming sensitized to it, a fact that made itself known for the first time the day I reacted so strongly to the sound of a doorbell.
”So one day came that held the answer to my new jumpiness and nervousness. That was the first time I noticed tingling sensations in my legs and arms, quickly followed by numbness. I made an appointment to see a doctor, fully convinced that I was very seriously ill. I seemed to have the symptoms of Parkinson`s disease. I also considered that I might have a brain tumor or a grave neurological disorder. After the doctor examined me briefly, we returned to his office and I expressed my fears.
”He laughed. Then he gave his diagnosis: `Nerves.`
”Nerves? Since when do nerves cause all of these physical conditions? I could understand the upset stomach and headache, but some of the other symptoms seemed almost like seizures. And besides, I`d always been quite calm. Surely something else, something physical, was at work. I`d always believed that even under great stress people could talk themselves into semi-tranquility at least–by just refusing to give in.
”At least partly convinced that the diagnosis was correct, I accepted the doctor`s prescription for tranquilizers but firmly resolved not to use them unless I couldn`t function otherwise. A couple of years back, a friend of mine told me that she`d learned how to cope with her maternal responsibilities, as she produced a bottle of innocent-looking white tables from her purse, saying simply `Equanil.` I recall my reaction–I thought she was weak.”
Like my friend and her friend, I`ve taken tranquilizers, but always with the feeling that it was still another piece of evidence that I was a very imperfect mother, I`ve learned that I`m far from being alone.
Another woman I talked to, an affluent, seemingly serene mother of teenagers, told me that what motivated her to go back to school and prepare herself for a teaching career at the community-college level was that when her kids were still fairly young, she developed what appeared to be a heart condition. Her physician told her flatly that there was nothing wrong with her heart, or with her physically at all, for that matter, but that if she didn`t get herself out of the house and away from the kids, she`d be in very serious trouble.
It was difficult to believe that this confident, intelligent woman had been reduced to the level she was describing. While she felt guilty about what she termed her ”unsuitability for motherhood” in the past, she had come to terms with it many years before. As she put it, ”I felt guilty about pursuing a career and leaving the kids with sitter, and it was very difficult to bear the responsibilities of a home and family while working full time. But had I not, the kids might not have had any mother at all.”
I`ve known few mothers who haven`t suffered from anxiety, tension, depression, stress or emotionally induced trauma in varying degrees. Nearly all the mothers I`ve talked to rely on something external to help them cope with the difficulties of raising children. For some it`s alcohol, for others it`s tranquilizers; others use food. The healthier coping devices include a job, volunteer work, regular respites from the children, exercise or meditation (hard to pull off when there are constant interruptions). Most, however, also take a large dose of guilt for needing something to help them cope.
While some of the mothers I know and have talked to seemed to benefit from visits to a psychiatrist, it should be noted that not all troubled mothers fare quite so well. For a while, I worked as a trained lay therapist on a parental stress hotline. Many overwhelmed mothers dialed our number in desperation because they had consulted professionals and spilled out their stories of being pushed to their limits only to have their therapists respond with a total lack of comprehension.
One woman told me that her therapist said, ”Come now, it can`t be all that bad.” Another told me that her psyhiatrist flat out didn`t believe her. The saddest of all was a distraught mother of 6- and 7-years-olds who, in a wavering voice, said that when she told her psychiatrist she felt she wasn`t cut out for motherhood and couldn`t cope with its demands, he told her she probably was not fit and suggested that she give her kids up for adoption.
The plain fact is that most people who haven`t been mothers have little understanding that what is culturally perceived as the happiest state imaginable for women can be cause for serious emotional disturbance. They don`t seem to realize that there are variables peculiar to each individual situation, as opposed to the happy, plastic state put forth by the media.
In ”The Future of Motherhood,” the sociologist Jessie Bernard said that far more housewives are likely to suffer insomnia, depression and nervous breakdowns than working women are, and she feels that housework ”may have a deteriorating effect upon a woman`s mind, rendering her incapable of prolonged concentration on any single task.” Further, she says that the housewife generally does her tedious job in isolation, unlike her predecessors (previous generations of mothers), who shared manual chores with members of an extended family: ”Far fewer than expected of the working women and more than expected of the housewives, for example, had actually had a nervous breakdown. Fewer than expected of the working women and more than expected of the housewives suffered from nervousness, inertia, insomnia, trembling hands, nightmares, perspiring hands, fainting, headaches, dizziness and heart palpitations. The housewife syndrome is far from a figment of anyone`s imagination . . . In terms of the number of people involved, the housewife syndrome might well be viewed as public health problem No. 1.”
While I certainly agree with Dr. Bernard, I`ve just got to say that I`ve never known of a single case of a housewife who had no children who suffered from any syndrome. Housework, per se, never drove me nuts. What has driven me nuts and continues to drive me nuts is being denied the opportunity to go about my business–no matter what it may be–without either constant interruptions or a sense of dread, waiting for the interruption or the crisis to occur. It is the care of the children or the presence of children that makes housewifery a crazy-making situation.
What is crazy-making, I think, is the pressure to get certain tasks done within a context that virtually guarantees such to be an impossible goal. I have a friend, for example, who is the mother of a grown son who lives 3,000 miles away. This woman does not work outside the home. She is a housewife. She takes care of her husband, cleans the house, gardens, cooks fantastic meals, decorates her home, sews her own clothes, plays tennis, reads books, paints pictures, does volunteer work. She is far from being driven mad by
housewifery. There are no children in her home.
