Modern Mother

I’ve given birth to a Puritan. My daughter cries and grows upset at any hint of anything sexy. We went to a nice Italian restaurant on a street that is known for three things: Italian restaurants (authentic ones – you’re sure the waiter is packing heat and the guy in the corner with the slicked back hair is taking a “meeting”), upscale antiques stores, and strip clubs. It’s a wild mix, but hey, that’s life in the city. She saw a billboard advertising "Naked Ladies!!" and proceeded to cry for two hours. I dug out my art books and showed her how the female form has been celebrated and depicted since the dawn of mankind. “See that little stone statue, that’s the Venus of Willendorf. See how she’s naked and has breasts – like all women?” More tears.

She’s very bent out of shape that I write books she can’t read. Not even over my shoulder. As she did attempt once. My bad luck that it was a love scene and she reads well and quickly for a third-grader. More tears.

Until I had children, I always thought they were hedonistic little things. Maybe some are. Not my darling. I adore her, of course, and would never do anything to upset her equilibrium. Like cutting my hair, which I am not allowed to do. Or, heaven forbid, dying it red. Which I wanted to do for my fortieth birthday. I had to be satisfied with a trim. Not the life-changing event I had planned.

I wanted children. Even in my twenties I tried. I thought I’d be a young mother. But ex-husbands and personal story arc’s sometimes go wobbly. I was thirty-one when she was born and thirty-four when her younger brother came along. That’s long enough to have lived. A lot. And now I find myself having to put on a persona I never imagined to be the restrictive falsehood it is. I’m a MOTHER.

My babies nursed at a tattooed breast. I swung a hammer restoring our beat up old Victorian while gestating. I’ve drag raced driving a Jaguar, a Corvette and a Plymouth Valiant. I know how to speed shift in a Karmen Ghia. I’ve been married twice. I’ve had love affairs that were mind-blowing, multi-continent and terribly illicit. I’ve drunk many a man under the table – including her father. I’ve spent enough time on construction sites to be able to use every bad word in a single sentence.

Sure, I was also in a sorority and I know how to write a thank you note for any occasion. I understand cutlery and can set a table for a six course meal. I can brew tea for thirty and make finger sandwiches out of delicate little bits of this and that. What can I say - I’m a brassy renaissance woman.

And that’s the problem. This whole mother-as-sole-identity thing might have worked in the fifties. Maybe even in the sixties. But what happens to those of us born after the sexual revolution? How do you stop being who you are so you can successfully raise a happy Puritan?