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Authors: Patricia Pearson
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always the same fourteen, ensuring constancy of care?
Michelangelo, painter of the Sistine Chapel: Wealthy parents putter about country estate near Florence while baby lives with
wet nurse in shed. Mother becomes muse for La Pieta and is thus immortalized rather than made to answer questions about how could she put her own interests ahead of her child's
crucial early development.
Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post: As infant, left with nanny in a Fifth Avenue flat while parents moved to Washington for four years. As adult, finally follows
them to the capital— with a vengeance.
Thomas Jefferson: Raised by clinically depressed slaves. Daughters also raised by slaves. One slave becomes mother of youngest
son, who therefore becomes slave. Life confusing, but very productive.
Jean Chretien, former prime minister of Canada: eighteenth of nineteen children born in rural Quebec, making caregiver-child
ratio four times the legal limit for day care.
Sleeping Beauties
I love my children, but my life would be much improved if they were unconscious more often. Ideally, my four-year- old could
go to sleep at six, say, and then wake up at ten the next morning. Or if that's too ambitious, what if it got to be eight-thirty
P.M. and she scrambled into bed and closed her eyes, instead of climbing onto the kitchen table and drawing on her legs with
a pen?
Still too aspiring? Then maybe she could fall asleep before I do.
Conversely, my baby son could try sleeping until it was light outside in the morning, because it was fine to watch the Athens
Olympics live, but on the whole I would rather not have one child fall asleep at eleven and the other one wake up at five.
Every time Ambrose and I go on a "date," the fun is overshadowed by the dread of getting to bed too late and being dragged
to our feet before dawn with a hangover stunningly magnified by sleep deprivation.
We keep hoping, instead, to spend time with each other privately at home, which is like waiting for Godot. When Ambrose kissed
me recently in front of Clara, she cried out in genuine astonishment: "What are you doing?" Oh, never mind. We resumed staring
gloomily at our children not-sleeping.
The children beam back like little rays of sunshine; life's a never-ending bed-bouncing blast when you're small. Bedtime?
Yay! Time for back flips, giggling fits, five trips to the bathroom, three to the fridge, and then sixteen outfit changes.
Yippee!
In the la-la-land inhabited by experts in parenting books, Mommy serenely reads bedtime stories, sings songs, and rubs the
child's back in a comforting ritual that leads smoothly to sleep. In my land, serene Mommy turns very gradually into serial
killer Mommy, after reading, singing, and rubbing culminates in child hopping gaily out of bed.
Sleepy child flies downstairs to get her Barbie/ballet slippers/half-eaten banana before returning to discourse vigorously
on who is and is not invited to her birthday party in two months' time.
Serene Mommy screams "GET INTO BED RIGHT NOW!" And sleepy child looks totally shocked, before bursting into tears and wailing
"DAAAADDDDYY!" At which point, serene Mommy kvetches, "Daddy has nothing to do with this!" feeling bitter that her authority
is so swiftly undercut by the prospect of divine rescuing Daddy.
Serene Mommy points out churlishly that Daddy, aka God, is lying in a stupor in the other room, after having swayed the baby
back and forth to Bob Marley tunes for several hours. Sleepy child proceeds to fling Guess How Much I Love You off the bed.
At ten-thirty, sleepy child is finally sleepy and wishing to snuggle, and serene Mommy is so stiff with suppressed rage that
she's about as snuggly as particle board.
So it goes, with minor variations, no thanks to the smug advice of other parents who consider themselves towering fonts of
wisdom because their children happen to be biddable. "I find," a typical parent chimes helpfully, "that
Michelangelo, painter of the Sistine Chapel: Wealthy parents putter about country estate near Florence while baby lives with
wet nurse in shed. Mother becomes muse for La Pieta and is thus immortalized rather than made to answer questions about how could she put her own interests ahead of her child's
crucial early development.
Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post: As infant, left with nanny in a Fifth Avenue flat while parents moved to Washington for four years. As adult, finally follows
them to the capital— with a vengeance.
Thomas Jefferson: Raised by clinically depressed slaves. Daughters also raised by slaves. One slave becomes mother of youngest
son, who therefore becomes slave. Life confusing, but very productive.
Jean Chretien, former prime minister of Canada: eighteenth of nineteen children born in rural Quebec, making caregiver-child
ratio four times the legal limit for day care.
Sleeping Beauties
I love my children, but my life would be much improved if they were unconscious more often. Ideally, my four-year- old could
go to sleep at six, say, and then wake up at ten the next morning. Or if that's too ambitious, what if it got to be eight-thirty
P.M. and she scrambled into bed and closed her eyes, instead of climbing onto the kitchen table and drawing on her legs with
a pen?
Still too aspiring? Then maybe she could fall asleep before I do.
Conversely, my baby son could try sleeping until it was light outside in the morning, because it was fine to watch the Athens
Olympics live, but on the whole I would rather not have one child fall asleep at eleven and the other one wake up at five.
Every time Ambrose and I go on a "date," the fun is overshadowed by the dread of getting to bed too late and being dragged
to our feet before dawn with a hangover stunningly magnified by sleep deprivation.
We keep hoping, instead, to spend time with each other privately at home, which is like waiting for Godot. When Ambrose kissed
me recently in front of Clara, she cried out in genuine astonishment: "What are you doing?" Oh, never mind. We resumed staring
gloomily at our children not-sleeping.
The children beam back like little rays of sunshine; life's a never-ending bed-bouncing blast when you're small. Bedtime?
Yay! Time for back flips, giggling fits, five trips to the bathroom, three to the fridge, and then sixteen outfit changes.
Yippee!
In the la-la-land inhabited by experts in parenting books, Mommy serenely reads bedtime stories, sings songs, and rubs the
child's back in a comforting ritual that leads smoothly to sleep. In my land, serene Mommy turns very gradually into serial
killer Mommy, after reading, singing, and rubbing culminates in child hopping gaily out of bed.
Sleepy child flies downstairs to get her Barbie/ballet slippers/half-eaten banana before returning to discourse vigorously
on who is and is not invited to her birthday party in two months' time.
Serene Mommy screams "GET INTO BED RIGHT NOW!" And sleepy child looks totally shocked, before bursting into tears and wailing
"DAAAADDDDYY!" At which point, serene Mommy kvetches, "Daddy has nothing to do with this!" feeling bitter that her authority
is so swiftly undercut by the prospect of divine rescuing Daddy.
Serene Mommy points out churlishly that Daddy, aka God, is lying in a stupor in the other room, after having swayed the baby
back and forth to Bob Marley tunes for several hours. Sleepy child proceeds to fling Guess How Much I Love You off the bed.
At ten-thirty, sleepy child is finally sleepy and wishing to snuggle, and serene Mommy is so stiff with suppressed rage that
she's about as snuggly as particle board.
So it goes, with minor variations, no thanks to the smug advice of other parents who consider themselves towering fonts of
wisdom because their children happen to be biddable. "I find," a typical parent chimes helpfully, "that
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