Needs

Dear Adele,

We need to talk about your needs: They are multiple and constant and they wear my ass out. I put you in day care one extra day this week–one extra day!–because I was exhausted and had a ton of papers to grade and work to do, and the extra separation time really shows. You want to be held a lot, all the time, and this isn’t possible for me, what with your older brother running around and, you know, food to cook, urges to pee, hair to (at least) keep from being oily-looking, laundry to fold, writing to complete. I simply cannot meet your needs all the time, and I cannot meet your brother’s needs all the time, and when this truth takes the form of your crying, or his crying, or something not getting finished, there are days where I just exist as Pissed Off Mama, because I am unable to meet your needs. (Obviously, I don’t mean neglect. I mean, like, not being able to get your brother a glass of milk because we ran out, or having to leave you in your crib crying while I put the laundry away in order to prevent Laundry Jam. Laundry Jam is a damn serious matter. It can devastate a household. Really.)

And Adele, I hate not being able to meet your needs all the time. (“Hate,” Adele, is a bad word, unless you’re talking about Rush Limbaugh, unless you’re actually fantasizing about ways to… because he’s so… and people like this man? he is actually a powerful individual? god, could you vomit? So–take my use of the word “hate” at this moment as a reflection of how difficult this whole mother-thing can be, as a warning of what can happen if you’re too hard on yourself.)

So I took this concern to my therapist, and here’s what she said: In order to grow up and learn to take care of themselves, children need to do the reparative work of their parents not meeting their needs all the time.

Let’s sit with that one for a minute.

Oh… bullshit! You need to meet your children’s needs all the time, as much as possible, and if you don’t you suck, because your children will become needy and desperate and screwed up if you don’t meet all their needs. Everybody knows that, especially those of us who are unlucky enough to come from dysfunctional homes, like me and a lot of other people. But Adele, what I’m coming to realize is this: people like me might comprehend the concept of that reparative work, because we never had our basic emotional needs met in the first place.

So–another reason for me to be absurdly hard on myself now has the potential to be removed from my list. This is good, Adele, because I don’t want you to be absurdly hard on yourself all your life–it makes days that aren’t unpleasant at all quite unpleasant. It keeps you from enjoying your life and each moment in it. In fact, it might keep you from enjoying those wonderful moments when I can meet your needs…

Kissy, kissy.

You like that? Yes you do, yes you do!

I love you.

Mommy