Losing the Battle While Winning the War

by Kristen M. Scott

April 14, 2005 was the longest day of my life.

Perhaps this is an overstatement.  I’ve had longer days.  Like the day we waited to hear the neonatologist’s opinion of my newborn’s heart murmur.  Or the 24 hours I spent agonizing if I’d be hired by the church just blocks from my home.  Or the day we learned my father was dying, in two weeks or six months; it was just a matter of time.

There have been worse days.  But this fretful day was neither my best, consumed as I was by anticipation, by waiting.  It was the day I was to learn if I’d won the annual library writing contest.

That this local, amateur competition mattered more to me than I cared to admit did not preclude in me a complacent certainty that I would win, if not first place, then one of the six designated prizes. My entry was well written, heartfelt, meaningful. The strength of my confidence in winning was matched in intensity only by my humiliation at not winning.

I did not win.

I learned this sad truth by a process of slow elimination, as the oft-ringing phone in the home I share with my popular 15-year-old daughter failed repeatedly to bring news of my victory. The call from the library programs director heralding my inclusion in the winners’ circle did not come on the anticipated day. Or the next day. Or even the next, as prudent optimism became tormented desperation, and I extended my hopefulness deadline beyond all reason.

Mind you, it wasn’t just my opinion I was banking on. I’d shared my essay with several acquaintances who were generous in their praise. Even my husband, who had once queried, upon learning that I want to write a book, “Don’t writers have to actually know something?” declared this essay effective and evocative.

These accolades notwithstanding, I received no call of congratulations and invitation to attend “high tea” at the library honoring the winners, at which time we would read from our “works” and (or so I envisioned) accept graciously the attention and recognition so otherwise lacking in our mundane suburban lives.

By the time I gave up hoping for triumph (or even honorable mention) I had convinced myself with variable effectiveness that a) I was a loser destined for perpetual obscurity; b) a mistake had been made in scoring which would be subsequently discovered to the horror of officials; c) a rinky-dink library writing contest held no value anyway.

It did hold value, however. It held tremendous value to me.

Why should this be so? I think I’ve come up with a few answers. With the passage of time (and a few more pressing matters, like my mother’s death two weeks later, to attend to) I’ve put this experience in its proper perspective. It wasn’t as though I’d made it all the way to the final four on American Idol, for instance, only to be ousted by an undiscriminating public.

I am a mother, after all, who ought to be setting a better example than to so childishly mourn a trivial loss, a contest no one but my immediate family even knew I’d entered.

Yet it goes to my very identity as a mother that I long for something more.

My husband, who on occasion comes up with a good idea, suggested recently, “Why don’t you write an essay called, ‘Being a mother is a beating’?” Yes. The volumes this could fill would consume my life so fully that this loss would become a distant memory, to be recalled only vaguely with indulgent amusement.

Hours could be spent cataloging the ways in which mothering is a thankless, repetitious, ego-deflating process wherein we become slaves to the darlings who once adored us, only to be trampled by these newly forged persons we have launched, through infinite sacrifice, as they hurry from our lives into their own, vibrant with the passion they have sapped from our souls.

I could enumerate the hours of fatigue, worry, and doubt, as we struggle through challenges nothing in our past lives prepared us for, toiling at work with the highest of stakes, the success or failure for which we will someday be held accountable. A project we must keep retooling, not knowing for years if it will turn out right.

But that’s not really how I feel, at least most of the time. I dearly love being a mother. Despite those moments  when I recognize the vast gulf which separates my life Then and Now, I would not change a thing. Even on that dark day some weeks ago, when the mirror in my bedroom – the “skinny mirror” as it is known to my daughter and her friends for its magical slenderizing powers – turned on me, reflecting back Truth rather than the slim illusion which has upheld me for the past several years.

It’s not that I don’t cherish my motherhood and recognize with gratitude the profound gift I’ve been given. Perhaps I simply wasn’t prepared for the self-sustaining nature of the job, that my wavering conviction that I’m doing my best is often the only reinforcement I’ll get.

For there is rarely public recognition of a mothering job well done. The public tends to learn mostly of our failures, through the local police blotter, for example. Or while we stand in line at Starbucks and our child chooses to express himself, loudly. Or dash behind the counter at Baskin Robbins, ignoring our frantic imperatives to Stop! and plunge his grimy hand into the vanilla ice cream, in full view of horrified customers whose children are behaving. These moments of ignominy tend to remain forefront in our cringe zones, grist for stories recounted with chagrin, but without which, of course, we’d not really belong to the parental fraternity.

Certainly I understand that the small and tender victories and losses, the daily consistency of shared lives, is what makes a relationship between parent and child. The difficulty lies in the enormous energy it takes to do this job on a day to day, year to year basis, the unrelenting demands which can leave even the most motivated, inspired, and determined of mothers (categories to which I have never consigned myself) feeling as limp and lifeless as my old Kappa Delta t-shirt. There is simply not enough left of me at the end of many days to feel like an individual, distinct from my role as mother. And I often question if I’m doing even this right. What if, for example, singing all those Elvis Costello songs as lullabies wasn’t such a hot idea?

Oh sure, objectively I know I am executing my duties at least moderately well. During the turbulent years which included my divorce and remarriage, the deaths of both my parents, and my son’s diagnosis with autism, I’ve held my family together. My children are well adjusted and happy more often than not. I own a home in a lovely neighborhood, work part time at a job I enjoy, and am fortunate to have interesting and supportive friends. Why then this yearning for validation, some outside recognition that I am of value, after all? That I have some talent beyond making lunches, maintaining my home, schlepping kids, filling out health forms on time, putting out fires (figuratively speaking) as they ignite?

Of course, mothering is not completely devoid of shining moments.  Just a few weeks ago at my son’s year-end class picnic, several members of his teaching team marveled at my ability to remove even the most virulent stains from his clothing.

“How do you do it?” they wondered aloud.

“OxiClean,” I replied sagely, my heart swelling with pride.

An essay I found at the church I work for explains that God’s love for us is truly the only validation we need to assume our worth; that this love is the context that defines who we are, a theory I want to embrace but my shaky heart questions. Can it really be that simple? So much of my identity has been shaped by my role as a mother, and its demands so often deplete my resources for anything more. Trusting myself enough to believe I am alright as I am, that the work I am doing as a mother is enough, is valid – noble, even, as I’ve been told – has been a spotty affair. I crave a scorecard, recording more wins than losses, tangible evidence that I am indeed a multifaceted woman of substance. A winner of a library writing contest, for instance.

At the conclusion of that long day in April, as I languished in self-pity and humiliation, my daughter came down from her bedroom to join me in the kitchen as I straightened the counter before retiring, defeated, to bed.

“Don’t worry about not winning that contest, Mom,” she told me gently. “It’s not that big a deal. It’s like when I tried out for cheerleading, and you encouraged me to go for it even though I was scared I wouldn’t make it. The important thing is that you tried.”

I looked at my daughter then, this beautiful near-woman, with her luminous skin and hair falling like silk around her shoulders, who had come down from her engrossing world of homework and peers and instant messaging to talk to me; this girl who earned straight A’s her first year of high school; who, though not a cheerleader, led her class, as student council president, in the Pledge of Allegiance at their middle school graduation, who paused during the recessional to gently take the hand of her classmate with Down’s Syndrome.

I don’t know for sure if I’m all that I can or should be, that the paths I have chosen for my life were the right ones. But I knew at this moment, that at least for now, I’m on the right track. And for today, that’s all the recognition I need.

Kristen M. Scott lives in a north Chicago suburb with her husband and two children, a daughter,15, and a son, 13.  A part-time church administrator, she received her B.A. in English from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.  In May, 2005, she began a support group for parents of children with special needs, focusing on the emotional impact of parenting extraordinary children.  While she has been writing for years, she has just recently begun submitting her work for publication.  Her essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the weekly suburban papers of the Pioneer Press. Contact her at kscott127@comcast.net