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Authors: Deborah Digges
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my doing, wasn't it? He is a good young man now in his first year of college, an excellent student with friends he is proud to bring home, wonderful, polite boys who call me “Mrs. Digges,” who carry my groceries from the car, open doors for me, boys whose company I thoroughly enjoy This is because of my good mothering of Charles, right?
Then what about Stephen? Why is he so troubled? Why does he act out in this way? How can two sons of the same mother and father be so different? These are the questions that make me angry. I believe that Stephen is intentionally challenging me and I want him to stop. I want all this trouble to stop. I actually believe that he can stop it.
After all. Look at all I've done for him. Think of how when he was tiny I carried him everywhere against my heart in a Snugli. How many nights I rocked him through his colic, slept with him next to me, forwent school and sports events with his brother because he was sick, or fussy, or tired?
The time he was choking, just as he began to lose consciousness, I was the one who reached down his throat with my finger and pulled out that piece of a toy. And who built for him with my own hands skate ramps, read to him
every
night, coached his Little League team, who, who…
I hate hearing myself say these things, but I say them, as if to abdicate, to place the blame where it belongs. I detest this vision of myself. I tell myself viciously that I am a walking cliche of the bad mother, a bad mother, bad mother. I am brutal with myself and a shrew to Stephen.
I am someone I never imagined, an isolated, bitter, defensive mother navigating by shame the deep waters of her son's adolescence, a changeling so different from the woman with a baby on her hip, walking with her mother and sisters, older son, nieces, and nephews to fill bags full of cherries, bags that will be left in rental cars, in airports, or actually carried home, pitted, and made into a pie.
Cherry juice stains the dress she will travel in, stains that, laughing, she shows to her sisters as the children hold up their hands, sticky with cherry juice and the rich sap from the tree. Carrying her Stephen, she is capable, happy. She is a good mother, like her sisters a fierce mother, and her children will therefore be good, smart, educated, caring, successful—better people, no doubt, than she.
Fall, 1992
The first week of the ninth grade in Amherst, Stephen is once again in trouble. Stan and I get the call around eleven on a Friday evening. We've been preparing to get in the car to go and look for Stephen, who was supposed to be home by ten. We've been lingering in the kitchen, hoping he might walk in.
Stan's tired. He arrived in Amherst about dinnertime, having driven up from Maryland for the weekend.
“Guess what.” He shakes his head as he hangs up the phone. “We
ought
to let him sit out the night in jail.” Stan picks up his car keys and heads out the door.
Alone in the house for a few minutes I'm dizzy with disappointment. How can this be? I slide down the wall and put my head in my hands, thinking, searching the screens inside my head for an image, a mooring. When the car pulls in the driveway, I brace myself.
The scene that is about to take place is predictable. Idetest its familiarity, Stephen stonewalling Stan and me, me following Stephen up to his room, pleading, trying to make contact, Stephen turning with accusations and profanity. Then Stan, thinking to come to my rescue, getting between us, insisting, “You can't talk to your mother this way!”
In this tiresome drama, how well we know our parts.
Tonight there is one notable exception.
As a rigid Stephen, rubbing his recently cuffed wrists, walks in the door, G.Q., our new English bulldog puppy, runs right over to him, jumps up on his leg, and wriggles and whines with happiness, G.Q., who couldn't care less about the events of the evening, about open and sealed records, lawyers, court dates.
The puppy's joy interrupts the
Then what about Stephen? Why is he so troubled? Why does he act out in this way? How can two sons of the same mother and father be so different? These are the questions that make me angry. I believe that Stephen is intentionally challenging me and I want him to stop. I want all this trouble to stop. I actually believe that he can stop it.
After all. Look at all I've done for him. Think of how when he was tiny I carried him everywhere against my heart in a Snugli. How many nights I rocked him through his colic, slept with him next to me, forwent school and sports events with his brother because he was sick, or fussy, or tired?
The time he was choking, just as he began to lose consciousness, I was the one who reached down his throat with my finger and pulled out that piece of a toy. And who built for him with my own hands skate ramps, read to him
every
night, coached his Little League team, who, who…
I hate hearing myself say these things, but I say them, as if to abdicate, to place the blame where it belongs. I detest this vision of myself. I tell myself viciously that I am a walking cliche of the bad mother, a bad mother, bad mother. I am brutal with myself and a shrew to Stephen.
I am someone I never imagined, an isolated, bitter, defensive mother navigating by shame the deep waters of her son's adolescence, a changeling so different from the woman with a baby on her hip, walking with her mother and sisters, older son, nieces, and nephews to fill bags full of cherries, bags that will be left in rental cars, in airports, or actually carried home, pitted, and made into a pie.
Cherry juice stains the dress she will travel in, stains that, laughing, she shows to her sisters as the children hold up their hands, sticky with cherry juice and the rich sap from the tree. Carrying her Stephen, she is capable, happy. She is a good mother, like her sisters a fierce mother, and her children will therefore be good, smart, educated, caring, successful—better people, no doubt, than she.
Fall, 1992
The first week of the ninth grade in Amherst, Stephen is once again in trouble. Stan and I get the call around eleven on a Friday evening. We've been preparing to get in the car to go and look for Stephen, who was supposed to be home by ten. We've been lingering in the kitchen, hoping he might walk in.
Stan's tired. He arrived in Amherst about dinnertime, having driven up from Maryland for the weekend.
“Guess what.” He shakes his head as he hangs up the phone. “We
ought
to let him sit out the night in jail.” Stan picks up his car keys and heads out the door.
Alone in the house for a few minutes I'm dizzy with disappointment. How can this be? I slide down the wall and put my head in my hands, thinking, searching the screens inside my head for an image, a mooring. When the car pulls in the driveway, I brace myself.
The scene that is about to take place is predictable. Idetest its familiarity, Stephen stonewalling Stan and me, me following Stephen up to his room, pleading, trying to make contact, Stephen turning with accusations and profanity. Then Stan, thinking to come to my rescue, getting between us, insisting, “You can't talk to your mother this way!”
In this tiresome drama, how well we know our parts.
Tonight there is one notable exception.
As a rigid Stephen, rubbing his recently cuffed wrists, walks in the door, G.Q., our new English bulldog puppy, runs right over to him, jumps up on his leg, and wriggles and whines with happiness, G.Q., who couldn't care less about the events of the evening, about open and sealed records, lawyers, court dates.
The puppy's joy interrupts the
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