Before I became a parent, I used to roll my eyes at the women who would say that they interpreted [any given topic] differently since becoming a mother. To me, it sounded like an ambiguous moral high ground that had no place in the conversation.
I get it now, though.
When I became a mother, I became keenly aware that everyone is someone’s child. Death and pain of strangers resonate even more deeply because I became every mother and every child became my child.
Before I became a parent, I imagined that it would be a terrifying experience. I imagined that it would be difficult and confusing and I wouldn’t know what to do or how to handle it. I was partly right.
It is terrifying, but not in the way that I imagined.
I got through the newborn stage and to my surprise, I realized I knew what to do. I didn’t take any classes, didn’t read any books, hadn’t spent any time with newborns, so I had no idea what to expect. What I didn’t expect was that with every cry, I would learn. As my son adjusted to the world, I adjusted to him in it, and every day, we both learned a little more as we settled into our new lives. I was tired, I was in pain, but I wasn’t totally lost, and we got through it.
The terrifying part is how much you love them.
This might sound silly and maybe even cute, but it’s not. It is a realization that fills me with anxiety and fear and hopelessness if I allow it to. The love I have for my son is more powerful than I was prepared to experience. The fear comes in when you realize that now that you have this love, you will never be okay without it. If the natural course of life were to be disrupted, I would never, ever, be okay. So much so that I can’t even put into writing anything more specific than that and I hope the reader can read between the lines.
And it’s this love that propels me to put his survival above absolutely everything in my world. It sounds so corny to say that I will literally go to the ends of the Earth for him if I needed to, but it’s true. There is no limit to what I will do to protect him.
I have to admit that I have been thinking about something that used to serve as pure entertainment to me, more and more since becoming a mother, and that is an old episode of Howard Stern.
In this episode, Sal, a listener-turned-friend of the show, went through a past life regression on air. What I am about to say sounds completely made up and I don’t blame the reader if they chalk it up to radio show theatrics, but I think anyone who listens to the episode will agree with it’s potential authenticity.
In his past life, Sal discovered that he was a sea turtle.
He didn’t automatically know he was a turtle. He described his surroundings, his point of view on a vast beach, and was able to conclude that he was a turtle. He explained that he was resting on the beach, but not totally resting, because he had just laid turtle eggs, which were to hatch, with countless baby turtles charging towards the ocean (I’ve seen the videos of them do this and they are great).
Sal’s voice was low, shaky at times, even in the interview he seemed distracted. After some prodding, Sal revealed that he was very scared and nervous for his baby turtles because there was a predator circling overhead.
That predator was a pteradoctyl, by the way. Sal had gone back to DINOSAUR TIMES.
(pause to appreciate the history)
My point is, as a Mama Turtle, Sal was frightened, preoccupied, and completely beside himself at the thought of a predator reaching his babies. He expressed feelings of gut wrenching sadness as he described knowing the babies needed to reach the ocean but the uncertainty of knowing if they would. He began to cry.
And now, I understand that every animal in nature feels the same terrifying love for their babies that I feel for my son. Even if “all” they are doing is laying eggs and letting nature do the rest. In order for our species to survive, we not only need to procreate, we need to keep our offspring alive so that they can grow and procreate, and in order to do that, we have to love them fiercely. Because otherwise we wouldn’t do it. It’s hard and exhausting and at times counterintuitive to our own individual survival but we do it because we love our babies. Love is what pushes us to put their survival above everything else in our world.
Becoming a parent has made me feel connected to nature and to others in a way I didn’t expect, in a way that compels me to become vegan, make my own clothes, live off the grid and the fatta’ the lan’, in every unrealistic way possible.
It also makes a lot of injustices in the world completely unbearable. I used to be passionate and inspired by seeking justice, for as long as I can remember, and I would like to believe that I will be again; but in the last 4 months I find myself crumbling with emotion when I read the news. News stories that previously sparked my passion for social justice now also come with the burning fire of survival and an endless ocean of tears. I feel a deep responsibility to not only protect my son but…everyone. And that’s impossible.
Tatyana was one of the first people I told about my pregnancy- roughly 5 minutes after I found out myself. A mother herself, she shared my excitement and looked forward to my joy. She assured me that morning sickness would come to an end when I bitterly told her I didn’t believe her (she was right). When I was shocked to learn my maternal instinct was wrong and I would be having a boy instead of a girl, she laughed and talked about how much fun she has with her son. She reminded me about how cute a nice bow-tie is, showed me photos of her matching clothes with her son, and said more times than I can remember, “Boys love their mamas”.
And she’s right, of course. She’s talked me through a lot of anxiety from the moment I learned I would become a mother. She’s been through it and she’s wise. And she faces an entirely different battle as a mother that I will never truly understand. Because her son is black, and my son is white.
When I think about how much more danger her son faces in this country simply because he has a darker skin color, my head spins and I feel sick.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how to protect my son- I need to make sure he can swim, I need to make sure he always wears a bike helmet, I need to make sure he knows the dangers of distracted driving.
In order to protect her son, Tatyana needs to make sure he knows how to protect himself from people who look like my son.
And when we learn about people like George Floyd- killed by police after being accused of a non-violent crime he did not commit- that feels impossible. From everything I’ve seen, Floyd could not have done anything differently to change the outcome. His story is like far too many others. His mother could not have possibly prepared him for or protected him from the assault that ended his life. All of the innate, pre-historic, instinctual love from a mother would not have made a difference, and that is unacceptable.
I need answers, because this is the world we are raising our children in, and we all need to be screaming and demanding better.
All I can come up with is that all of the mothers* need to tune into that universal connection we have. The one where we feel like every mother and every child feels like our child. We need to be thinking beyond how we can protect our own children in our own home and extend that love that knows no bounds to the children of mothers who are doing everything they can and still can be no match for the systems put in place to oppress people of color in this country.
Specifically, white parents of white children have an obligation to be actively and constantly striving to raise our children with specific goals of making the world safer for black and African American children and adults.
Especially our sons.
I need to protect my son, and I need to help protect Tatyana’s son. I need to teach my son to swim, to wear a helmet, to drive safely, and I need to raise my son in a way that I can ensure that he will be an active part of the solution that will make the world safer for black men in America.
Because what we’re doing isn’t working. And that is terrifying.
*I chose to repeatedly use the word “mother’ because that is the label I identify with. All of these sentiments also apply to fathers, guardians, and non-binary parents.
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