No Raises but plenty of Fringe Benefits

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For decades, there have been mothers who argued that they received no pay for the thankless (as they describe it) job they do. Some governments in the world offer child benefit payments or incentives for having a family, but this in no way covers the worth of a mother's job. It is probably true for fathers as well, but one must admit that from a long time before birth, the mother is filling a demanding role of which no one but another mother can begin to estimate the worth. Aside from the housework and cooking, which even a housewife without children has to do, there are the roles of sports trainer, nurse and doctor, bank teller, employer, and personal counselor. A mother must be all of these and more to each of her children, and none of them is a paying job as it would be out in the world. When my second child was born, only thirteen months after the first, I looked into his tiny face when the nurse gave him to me. Initially of course I felt the joy but within minutes the thought passed through my mind that I would be raising two boys side by side for life, and they would both be teenagers at the same time. Truthfully, I couldn't imagine how any parent of multiple teenagers could ever be equipped to deal with the rebellion, the laziness, the selfishness, and the hormones I expected to face, even with only two boys. My fears, however, never came to pass. With my children now 16 and 17, the oldest just having graduated high school, I find that they are focussed, polite, intelligent, ambitious and reasonable human beings. Whatever happened to that teen stage of life I remember going through myself? I know that I am to be thankful for whatever blessing this is being bestowed on me and enjoy the peace and affection we share as mother and sons. It is no doubt that every mother has her personal horror stories of things the kids did when they were growing up. My own experience boasts the same. From the time they were very young, my two sons were fiercely loyal to each other, defending each other, cheering in times of personal victory, hurting when his brother was hurting. This also means that when they were playing together, they spent time thinking up great acts of mischief. Every mother knows you need to keep your eyes on your children to keep them out of trouble and away from danger. What mother, though, has not found her children into something that they should have been kept away from, and realizing there is no possible way to watch them every single second, yet feeling horribly guilty for this thing she couldn't avoid. I remember several such times with my boys. At the time when they were just near one and two years old, I put them down for a nap one day. The house grew wonderfully quiet and peaceful and I probably took advantage of the time to have a bath or fix something toward supper. In any case, I decided to check on them about half an hour after they started their nap. To my horror, I found my older son had climbed out of his own crib and into his brother's, climbed out the end and reached the diaper rash ointment on the bureau, then proceeded to have a great time with his brother, painting each other and the crib and the sheets with the sticky, oily white stuff. They were both giggling and looked like little clowns with their white faces, hands, arms, and legs. Another day, playing with their toys in the family room, I left them for one minute or less while gathering up some laundry to put in the washer. Upon my return, I found they had opened the latched woodstove (it was summer and the stove was cold). In the short time I had been getting the laundry ready, they managed to grab handfuls of cold black ashes and paint their clothing and faces and hands and legs, this time black instead of white. So it is that I tell you never to underestimate what your children can accomplish even if you think they are in a safe environment. What you consider dangerous they may see simply as fun. Perhaps if the diaper rash ointment had been toxic or the woodstove hot, I would have panicked more than I did. My advice to a mother who goes through this is not to beat yourself up and think you are a terrible mother. You are not the first or last to experience these situations. Every mother will spend nights cleaning up a child's vomit or sitting in an emergency room waiting to see how many stitches there will be. Every child will go through these things and survive them. If you are in the hospital waiting room thinking you did something wrong to have your child end up this way, you couldn't be more wrong. I sat through many hours in the ER waiting for treatments of ear infections, and wondering how long they would make my child wait for stitches of his bleeding chin when he fell on the ice rink. These situations are quite common for most children, but there are also the real serious times, like when my older son's lung collapsed spontaneously due to a condition called pneumothorax. There was emergency surgery at two in the morning, followed during the rest of that year by two more surgeries intended to prevent further incidents of pneumothorax. As many times as a doctor tells you it is a common procedure and "simple", you will never really believe him. This is your child and your child is special and different from others, and --no-- you are not the first nor the last to believe this absolute truth. Then comes the day when they are almost grown, they have the power of a driver's license and they take you for a ride in the car. Don't forget to breath and flex your fingers from time to time while you are white knuckling the dashboard or door handle or window ledge. Your mom went through all these things with you, too, and both of you survived it, didn't you? My most recent reward came a few weeks ago, when I watch my oldest son walk up onto the stage to receive his high school diploma. Pride cannot describe what I felt. Beside me, his younger brother was accompanied by his own first girlfriend and I knew they were anticipating their own graduation next year... another chance for Mom to beam. Low paying thankless job, indeed. There is no pay more valuable than your child coming up to you, whether showing off his latest accomplishment or simply thanking you for being in his life, putting arms around you and saying, "I love you, Mom." There will be fathers who read this and maybe feel something similar, but I don't believe it will be with the same way that a mother feels it.