Forever, Erma Page 7

  In 1966, I wrote that parents are awed by genius, adjust to the average child and are compassionate toward the slow learner. But the child who stands apart and is none of these things only puzzles, confuses and tries their patience.

  They fear for the future of this rare, unpredictable child, who is not only out of step with the world but, if there’s a puddle or a pile in front of him...will step in it.

  What has happened to this child-turned-man whose destiny filled me with apprehension?

  He lost his billfold in the Grand Canyon, but the trip back to look for it was “worth it.” He forgot birthdays, but when he remembered, the gifts were warm and personal and melted your heart. He set a record for having a tape deck installed and stolen within three hours but held no malice. He left his space maintainer in a sandwich he was reheating in the microwave oven but paid for a new one with money from his paper route. He borrowed the car and, when the radiator boiled over, poured Orange Crush in it, but he was contrite.

  His mail consists of brochures from causes and needs all over the world. His desk is scattered with unpaid traffic tickets and his billfold holds three duplicate driver’s licenses. He runs his car on empty, writes 35 checks a week and has never bought a bottle of shampoo.

  I have never heard him say, “I’m too busy to talk to you.” Never heard him complain, “The world is rotten.” Never known him to be intolerant.

  He dreams impractical dreams. He tries the patience of Job.

  But with his childlike trust and his zest for living, who am I to say that the drummer he marches to will not take him to the stars?

  Parenthood Is Worth the Risks—September 2, 1980

  There’s at least one in every crowd, the woman who does not want to bring a child into “this lousy, mixed-up world.”

  I met one the other night who said children were just ego trips for parents who like to see their own image staring back at them over the breakfast table. She added, “I can’t come up with one reason for having them.”

  What a pity. According to my children, there were a lot of reasons I had them.

  I needed a personal slave: someone to answer the phone, get my sweater, find my glasses, get my keys out of the door, unload the groceries, go to the store, let the dog out and move the hose.

  I needed someone around the house to eat the leftovers the dog wouldn’t touch.

  I needed someone to shove out of the car to throw his body over the last picnic table while we found a place to park.

  I needed a live-in who would assist in raising a younger brother and sister by taking them to the bathroom every five minutes and sitting with them for free on New Year’s Eve.

  I needed an excuse for my saddlebag hips and flabby upper arms.

  I needed material for the Christmas newsletter and a three-times-a-week column.

  I needed someone to mail letters for me when it rained.

  I needed someone to practice medicine on. (“Turn down that record or you’ll go deaf!”)

  I needed someone to spy on and make me feel important.

  That’s their story. Mine is even more biased.

  I brought children into this lousy, mixed-up world because when you love someone and they love you back, the world doesn’t look that lousy or seem that mixed up.

  I gave them life because they have the same right I was given to make up their own minds as to what makes a good or a bad world.

  More than an image over the breakfast table, they are special to this universe now and will be long after I am gone.

  Some people must take the risk of being a parent. If we don’t, who will be left to listen to the young people who lament, “I don’t want to bring children into this lousy, mixed-up world”?

  Favorite Child—May 10, 1981

  Every mother has a favorite child.

  She cannot help it. She is only human.

  I have mine.

  That child for whom I feel a special closeness. The one I reach out to in a rare moment, to share a love that no one else could possibly understand.

  My favorite child is the one who was too sick to eat the ice cream at his birthday party, had measles at Christmas and wore leg braces to bed because he toed in.

  She was the fever in the middle of the night, the asthma attack, the child in my arms at the emergency ward.

  My favorite child spent Christmas alone away from the family, was stranded after the game with a gas tank on E, lost the money for his class ring.

  My favorite child is the one who screwed up the piano recital, misspelled committee in a spelling bee, ran the wrong way with the football and had his bike stolen because he was careless.

  My favorite child is the one who fell asleep over an assignment on China that the teacher never bothered to grade, flunked her driver’s test five times and told us she could hardly wait to get out of the house.

  My favorite child is the one I punished for lying, grounded for insensitivity to other people’s feelings and informed he was a royal pain to the entire family.

  My favorite child slammed doors in frustration, cried when she didn’t think I saw her, withdrew and said she could not talk to me.

  My favorite child always needed a haircut, had hair that wouldn’t curl, had no date for Saturday night and a car that cost $600 to fix.

  My favorite child said dumb things for which there were no excuses. He was selfish, immature, bad-tempered and self-centered. He was vulnerable, lonely, unsure of what he was doing in this world...and quite wonderful.

  The one I’ve loved the most is the one whom I have watched struggle and—because the struggle was his—done nothing.

  All mothers have their favorite child. It is always the same one, the one who needs you at the moment for whatever reason—to cling to, to shout at, to hurt, to hug, to flatter, to reverse charges to, to unload on, to use—but mostly, to be there.

  The First Day of School—September 3, 1981

  This column could be entitled: Confessions of a child entering school for the first time who according to adults has “nothing to worry about.”

  My name is Donald and I don’t know anything.

  I have new underwear, a new sweater, a loose tooth and I didn’t sleep last night. I am worried.

  What if the school bus jerks after I get on and I lose my balance and my pants rip and everyone laughs?

  What if I have to go to the bathroom before we get to school?

  What if a bell rings and everyone goes in a door and a man yells, “Where do you belong?” and I don’t know?

  What if my shoestring comes untied and someone says, “Your shoestring is untied. We’ll all watch while you tie it”?

  What if the trays in the cafeteria are too high for me to reach?

  What if the thermos lid on my soup is on too tight and, when I try to open it, it breaks?

  What if my loose tooth wants to come out when we’re supposed to have our heads down and be quiet?

  What if teacher tells the class to go to the bathroom and I can’t go?

  What if I get hot and want to take my sweater off and someone steals it?

  What if I splash water on my name tag and my name disappears and no one will know who I am?

  What if they send us out to play and all the swings are taken? What do I do?

  What if the wind blows all the important papers out of my hands that I’m supposed to take home?

  What if they mispronounce my last name and everyone laughs?

  What if my teacher doesn’t make her D’s like Mom taught me?

  What if I spend the whole day without a friend?

  What if the teacher gives a seat to everyone and I’m left over?

  What if the windows in the bus steam up and I won’t be able to tell when I get to my stop?

  I’m just a little kid, but maybe I’m smarter than I think I am. At least I know better than to tell a five-year-old with a loose tooth who has never been out of the yard by himself before that he has “nothing to worry about.”

>   Third Child—November 5, 1981

  Someone, who has wisely remained anonymous, once said that children are like waffles. The first one should be used to season the grill and then tossed out.

  Studies made on first children say they’re not all that bad. They are usually shy, serious and sensitive, are academically superior and are more likely to be an Einstein.

  Second children, on the other hand, are relaxed, independent, cheerful, lean toward creativity and are more likely to be a Picasso.

  No one has had the courage to find—let alone study—child No. 3 and the ones who follow, whom I call et ceteras.

  Is there life after the first two children? What are the et ceteras like?

  I have discovered the third child has a few attributes of his own. He has itchy feet and joins other families for three or four months, often without being noticed. He is not intimidated by anyone, has a great sense of humor and is apt to be a game show host.

  Part of their uniqueness is that third children have no history. There are no footprints of them in the baby book, no record of their baptism, no snapshots of their birthdays and no report cards to show they ever were.

  Their childhood diseases are uneventful, their first words fall on deaf ears, and toilet training is a lonely affair with no one to applaud their efforts.

  The third child learns early that he is odd man out and has broken the family symmetry.

  Kitchen chairs come four to a set, breakfast rolls four to a package and milk four cups to a quart. Rides at Disneyland accommodate two to a seat, the family car carries four comfortably, and beds come in twos, not threes.

  The third child is the one who gets called the other two’s names before the mother finally remembers his. He goes through a lifetime of comparisons: “You’re not going to be as tall as your brother...as smart as your sister...as athletic as your father.”

  I personally feel there’s a lot to be said for the et cetera children, who get a fast family shuffle and who thrive on neglect and somehow appear one day all grown up.

  They not only know who they are and what they are, but they’ve dealt very early with the two things that most children fear the most: competition and loneliness.

  Mother-Son Dialogue—January 13, 1987

  Parents are always complaining that their kids never talk to them. I have never had a problem communicating. I can question them openly about anything and they will respond.

  Take the other night. One of them came in late and I padded out into the hallway, where mother and son had a real dialogue at 2 A.M.

  “Is that you?”

  A: “Who did you think it was?”

  “What time is it?”

  A: “What time do you think it is?”

  “We had your favorite dinner tonight: pork chops and applesauce. Did you eat?”

  A: “Don’t I always?”

  “What do people do at 2 A.M.?”

  A: “Have you forgotten?”

  “Yes. Did you see Greg tonight?”

  A: “Did he call?”

  “Did I say he did?”

  A: “Did he or didn’t he?”

  “No, but Lisa did.”

  A: “What did she want?”

  “She didn’t say. Did you get gas for the car?”

  A: “Didn’t I say I would?”

  At this point he went into the bathroom and I had to continue the conversation through the crack in the door.

  “Are there any towels in there?”

  A: “Aren’t there always?”

  “When will you stop taking things for granted?”

  A: “Do I do that?”

  “Did I tell you to be home at six Friday? It’s Grandma’s birthday.”

  A: “Don’t you remember?”

  “Is the water hot?”

  A: “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Do you want me to call you late in the morning?”

  A: “How late is late?”

  “Nine-ish?”

  A: “Are you serious?”

  “I’m going to bed. It’s wonderful that we can talk together like this. A lot of kids, when they reach your age, become uncommunicative, and you don’t know what they’re doing or what they’re thinking. Am I lucky or what? Don’t answer that.”

  Different Mother for Each Child—June 26, 1990

  Often when I’m interviewed, I’m asked what kind of a mother I am. That’s like asking me to make up my own test and grade it. Who knows? I showed up for it. I worked a lot of overtime. Had a lot of help from Drs. Spock, Denton and Ruth. Not one of my kids is working on a Mommie book. Only one has an agent. I suspect that if you talked with each of the three, you would get a different answer because I was three different people. No one got the same mother.

  Child No. 1 got the Antiseptic Queen, a thin, nervous woman endowed with patience and dedicated to staying at home boiling things all day long, as if she were living through a typhoid epidemic. She boiled pacifiers, toys and diapers, recorded the baby’s BMs and took pictures every four days for the baby album. She hand-smocked little dresses, served homemade baby food in a warmer dish with little ducks floating around the rim and actually needlepointed a 4-by-6 rug of a sailboat for the nursery.

  Child No. 2 got Super Sufferer, who had stretch marks on her face from overeating and dragged around in her husband’s shirts. She couldn’t get a meal together until seven and fell asleep during a root canal. With regularity, she flunked the wife/mother quizzes in magazines. She told her children the tooth fairy resorted to checks because the IRS needed proof of the deductions. Apathy reigned. The baby food included a hot dog on a paper plate. The musical potty seat played “The Impossible Dream,” and she once rescued the pacifier from the coffee grounds and rinsed it with the garden hose before sticking it into the baby’s mouth.

  Child No. 3 got Mother Mellow, who didn’t much care what he did just so long as he had clean hands and his own door key. Birth and graduation pictures were on the same film. The sailboat rug faded when it was washed and was now used for a dog bed. She was a woman with no nervous system even when the baby bit into a tube of paint tint and urinated blue for a week. This mother actually revealed a sense of humor and admitted to mistakes from time to time. She ironed on demand and just the parts that showed. The only items in the baby book were a footprint and congratulations from the insurance agent.

  Small wonder kiss-and-tell books are written by the firstborn.

  Housewife’s Lament

  Soap Operas—June 1, 1965

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT my husband thinks I’m made of!

  After spending a day ironing in front of my television, I am so emotionally involved in the tormented lives of my soap opera heroines, you’d think he would sense that I can’t take on his problems, too.

  Just last week he came barging in and said, “Hello.”

  “What do you mean by that!” I said, flipping open the tablecloth.

  “Just hello,” he said.

  “No one says ‘hello.’ You sound funny. If you’re going to share some big, fat trauma with me, forget it! I’ve just lived through three miscarriages, two trial separations, a nasty, interfering grandmother, a broken-down actress who’s a lush visiting her daughter in prison, a cheating wife, a custody suit, and a neurological workup. Besides, I blew three quiz games, and underbid on a weekend for two in a poverty pocket. I’m exhausted.”

  He shook his head. “It’s ridiculous how you involve yourself in these make-believe stories. Got any coffee on?”

  “I knew it. You want to talk. Some days I feel like Ma Perkins, who just pours coffee while the entire world comes through her kitchen and puts problems at her feet. Get your own sugar. What’s the problem?”

  “No problem.”

  “There has to be. No one drinks coffee in the afternoon without a problem. I know. Joanne went through this on Love’s Eternal Guiding Flame Is Flickering but Still Searches for General Hospital’s World of Tomorrow, and her husband got sa
cked. You didn’t get sacked, did you?”

  “Isn’t there anything else on daytime television but stories and games?”

  “Sure, there are Pinky Lee reruns. And Boston Blackie repeats. But it’s not fun when you know the dialogue.”

  “Don’t these stories ever have any happiness in them?” he persisted.

  “Yes. When Lisa lost her baby, her mother was happy.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Not so weird. Lisa wasn’t married. It solves the problems for all of them. Of course, big-mouth Bruce had to complicate things for them. He’s the orderly in the hospital. In a pig’s eye! I wouldn’t let him tidy up my curler tray. Anyway, he blew it all over town. More coffee?”

  “These soap opera heroes—don’t they ever work?”

  “Work! Could you put in a day’s work if your mother-in-law accused you of doing her daughter in and was trying to take the children away from you? That’s the trouble with men. They’ve got no feelings for other people.”

  “I do have a little problem. Could we eat later, so I can get a haircut before dinner?”

  “I knew it. Tell you what, I don’t want to miss my night soap operas, so I’ll fix you a tray. I wouldn’t ask you to eat alone, but when you’re an illegitimate child, whose convict father is fresh out of his oxygen tent after being shot by the town’s only insurance salesman, you need friends.”

  Lost Identity—September 18, 1965

  I never know what to say to women who ask my opinion on how they can find their “lost identity.”

  I’m a poor one to ask. Not only has my identity been lost for years, but so has my front door key. (And if you think I get my jollies taking out the bathroom screen and shinnying down the shower head to get into my house each evening, you’re crazy.)

  When I was first married, I fancied I identified with Debbie Reynolds and Dr. Schweitzer. Several years and three children later, I reshuffled standards and now identify with Jane Withers, taking the stains out of her sink, and Pa Kettle.